Oneshot Album
by Phantomrose96
Summary: Chapter Seven: A Victim of Time. Ghosts don't age-the world just moves on around them.
1. Forgive Me

_I've had a couple one shots saved on my computer, a few of which I put on deviantart, but I figured they'd be better suited to here. This is the first one, so please enjoy :)_

...

I never thought hard about how I would die; you never really like to consider the possibilities, especially when your profession could throw you into a life-or-death situation at the drop of a hat. You just get used to pushing the thought far out of your mind, so far away you can barely see it, at least until that moment when you're staring into the dead, murderous, unfeeling eyes of a creature yearning to see you bloody and cold. That feeling, when everything seems to stop in preparation for your death and the world stares you down for your last, fleeting breaths—that…_sensation _has hit me hard a few times; it's only happened in the worst thicket of ruthless ghost attacks, that I've felt how close at hand death is for a ghost hunter. The feeling is unreal, unnerving, and all-consuming, and yet, despite the risks and the dangers, I can't help but know it's my obligation to fight, for my town, for my husband, for my children. I would accept death anytime if it meantprotecting them all. Maybe I keep things running at home; maybe Jack isn't the most competent father in the world, but he loves our children like no one's business, and he could take care of them if the worst came to pass.

They could forgive me for dying.

And, I suppose, that was the last thought running through my mind before _it _happened, with my eyes transfixed on the glinting steel as the ghost thrust it backwards, ready to impale the sword clean through my body. I tugged helplessly at my leg, crushed beneath the fallen bookcase of the classroom that had been ripped to shreds.

"Say goodnight, ghost hunter!" The specter's wicked eyes grew wider, sanity slipping from his face as he cracked a wide, demonic grin, cackling in a way that sent shivers down my spine.

_They'll forgive me…_

"NO!"

The scream seemed to shake the building, dying instantly in the confusion. His voice was silenced; the sickening squelch of metal slicing through flesh split the air, delicate, glass-like shattering overlapping the noise as fragments of the smashed object tinkered to the ground.

Breath froze in my throat, my eyes trembling, lids twitching with the added effort to keep themselves shut against the pain that was sure to come.

_They'll forgive me…_

One second passed—then two—until I had to crack an eye open, inane curiosity begging to know why I wasn't bleeding out on the floor.

My eyes watered with the fear and effort to remain shut, and a few blinks shed the blurring tears from my eyes, dragging the room back into focus, in time for my world to stop at the sight before me. A strained, horrified gasp swept past my lips, eyes going wide as I took in the sight. The steel had paused inches from my face, my eyes not quite able to focus on it, its tip dripping with a sickly, red-green residue. I traced the edge backward, my trembling gaze settling on the unmoving figure before me, his back to my eyes, with the remnants of a green ectoplasmic ghost-shield shattered at his feet. As though he hadn't realized, the boy still stuck his hands out, frozen where they hung, protection shattered under the strength of the creature's steel sword.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't find the bearings to think. Instead I laid there transfixed, as the sword thrust itself further in, the white-haired boy coughing wetly in response, splatters of his ectoplasmic blood dripping to the floor below. The swords tip scraped gently against my face, my frozen body unable to react as it drew a slight stream of blood from the bridge of my nose. The glinting steel traced down my gaping mouth, falling in turn as the young boy collapsed on the floor, hus glowing hand clutched firmly around the sword's hilt. With his free, badly shaking hand, he unclipped the thermos from his waist band, suddenly blocking it from view as he aimed it at the ghost ahead of him.

"Don't you…touch her…" he rasped, voice barely there as the attacker let loose a string of curses, disappearing in a flash of icy blue light.

The sword still lingered in existence, master gone, hilt clattering to the ground as the boy fell to his hands and knees. The tip jutted clean through his back, shaking with the sputtering coughs that convulsed his torso, blood dripping from his mouth. One, powerful yank rendered the sword free from his chest, closely followed by a tortured, painful yelp, until finally, the ghost child let his arms give out completely, crumbling to the floor with jagged, shuddering breaths.

"S-sorry…" He wheezed, chest barely rising from my vantage point.

_What?_

Adrenaline surged through my body, desperate yanking and twisting finally freeing my leg from the toppled shelf as I crawled, despite the shattered ankle, the few feet of distance to the prone figure. Some motherly instinct took over, forcing me to flip him onto his back, his acid green eyes, dulling with each passing second, finally meeting mine.

"Sorry…" he wheezed again, shuddering coughs trying to clear the pooling blood from his airway.

…_What?_

I fought desperately to answer him, forcing any sort of response to my lips, but the breath and strength to continue died in my throat; in all honesty I had no response for the terrified, fading irises trembling on the floor. Instead I kneeled there, hands supporting my weight as I struggled to understand what I was seeing. It was wrong, so wrong, my thoughts gone as it left me to lie there with my mouth gaping open, completely dumbstruck. Comprehension tried to force its way to my mind, thoughts reeling as I took in the dying (_dying?) _form of my sworn enemy. He was the boy who attacked our mayor, who stole and destroyed and wreaked havoc on this town. He was the ghost who'd attacked me, attacked my husband, attacked my _family_. Yet somehow, for _some_ reason, he took the brunt of the attack that surely should have killed me.

"Why?" I whispered, eyes still unable to believe what they saw. "Why'd you…save me?"

"….I'm sorry…" His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, wrenching themselves back open as he fought desperately to remain conscious. "So sorry…Mom…"

The blood running through my veins turned to ice_. He has a mother? _The thought shook me to my core, realizing with a knot in my stomach how closely he resembled my own son, my own Danny who should be here. I whipped my head around, taking in the cowering students huddled by the wall, and the equally terrified teacher still guarding them. Jack, Danny, and his two friends were missing, though, having sprung into action to help with the sudden school invasion in a display of courage I never would have expected from the younger three. But they hadn't yet returned.

"Sweetie, I'm not your mother," I tried reasoning with the dying child.

_This isn't right, ghosts _can't _die…_

"I'm sorry, Mom," he repeated, eyes losing their focus. "Please don't be mad…" One shuddering breath forced its way past his lips, acting as a pause in his words. "I'm really sorry…Please don't be mad at me…"

"I'm sure your mom isn't mad at you," I tried soothing, watching in horror as the child's ectoplasm pooled around my knees, seeming to sap the life from him as though he were human. "She should be proud…" I added, tears starting to prick my eyes as they drank in how much Phantom looked like my own Danny.

"I wanted to tell you…" His voice was growing weaker, and suddenly, one blood-stained hand found its way into mine, wrapping loosely around it as he tried to maintain his grasp.

_Tell me what?_

"DANNY!"

The noise wrenched my head back to the door, watching one of our ectoguns clatter to the floor, slipping from the Goth girl's grip as she ran, nearly stumbling, to the ghost boy's side. Tears clearly stained her cheeks as she crumbled beside me, her hands hovering over the oozing wound with no way of stopping it. Tucker followed closely behind, mouth gaping open as he fell to his knees, like Sam had, next to Phantom.

I watched in confusion, taking in how readily they came to his aid. Did they know him?

"Damn it…" Sam choked, her tears dripping down onto her trembling arms. "No, _damn it!" _The pain in her voice grated against my ears, and I could only watch in pity as she wrapped her arms around the ghost's chest. Lost, shuddering sobs wracked her body, completely at a loss for what she could do.

I watched in surprise as Phantom's eyes dulled further in a mirrored sort of pain, his hand trying to tug itself from mine to comfort her, but he no longer had the strength to do that.

"Sam, I…Please…don't cry," his words were muffled, strained, suddenly interrupted by a wave of spluttering coughs that dotted his chin with ectoplasmic blood. "D-dying's not so bad…I should know…" With that he almost, _almost, _seemed to chuckle.

"No, you're _not _dying!" She suddenly snapped, tearstained head wrenched violently from the boy's chest. Her face glowed with a misplaced sort of anger, eyes seething with contempt. She pressed her palm against the stab wound, applying pressure with no real hope of stopping the flow of ectoplasm. "Because…" Her voice started quivering, strength rushing from her eyes. "Because…" until her composure completely shattered, lip trembling as agony overtook her expression. "Because you're taking me to that stupid freshman dance in May! You _are…_A-and you couldn't do that if you're…if you're not…" A strangled sob ripped past her lips, words choking themselves as Phantom took one shuddering, steadying breath.

"Thought you…didn't want to go…"

"I didn't!" she sobbed, desperate eyes drinking in the slowly fading light in his, "but I…I c-changed my mind…because I wanted to go _with you_…" Her voice was gone, dead, as she started to lose the will .to continue. "After you asked…I realized I just wanted to be _with you!"_

…

The conversation jarred me, an uncomfortable sort of confusion settling in my stomach as my eyes darted between the two. _Danny had been planning for months to ask her to that dance. _From the corner of my eye I caught Jack making his way to my side, confusion settling over his features as he wrapped his arms over my shoulder. I glanced up into his eyes, then back down to the other two. _Three out of four…_

"Sam, Tucker," I started weakly, a sort of wrongness I couldn't identify twisting in my gut. "Weren't you two with Danny?..."

"We should have been…" Sam choked out, grabbing Phantom's hand from the ground as she stroked it against her cheek. "I-I'm so sorry, Danny…We won't leave you again…"

Phantom closed his eyes for a moment, head rocking slightly in consent, as his fingers brushed weakly against her cheek. "Would have…asked you again sooner, Sam…if I knew you'd say yes…" Another weak chuckle wheezed from his airway, coughing growing weaker as he couldn't quite clear the pooling blood. "I'd have asked a thousand times over…if it meant going to that dance with you…" The light left his eyes, trembling pupils stilling themselves as they lost their focus. "…I love you…" His eyes were suddenly squeezed shut, teeth gritting as his back arched against the ground. A small, terrified moan swept past his lips, as the blood started pooling more quickly beneath him. His shoulders relaxed, dead eyes swimming in the onslaught of tears as he shut them tightly. "…Don't leave, please…" He whispered, cracking open his glowing green eyes, hand tightening against her tearstained cheek. Honest fear had worked its way into his small voice, tears dripping down the sides of his face as he shut his eyes again against the pain.

"We won't," Tucker whispered, wiping a stream of tears from under his glasses.

"We'll…be right here." Sam sniffed, a strangled sob wrenching itself from her chest. "I love you too, Danny! I don't know…why I didn't tell you earlier. I'm so sorry…"

"But…Danny…Where's Danny?" I whispered, confusion shrinking my voice to nothing as I threw my gaze back and forth between the kids and Jack, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my ankle. "Where's Danny?"

Jack shook his head weakly, offering the only response of the three.

"So…sorry, Mom…" Phantom wheezed again, his eyes, nearly gone, making their way to mine. "Don't be…mad…Please…"

_No…_

"Please forgive me…"

_No…_

"Didn't mean to die…now…o-or in the accident."

"No…" I breathed, wrenching the limp hand up to my face, cradling it in both palms. "Oh dear god _no!"_

Slowly, weakly, his eyes started to shut, no resistance coming to meet his surrender as his body lost its rigid strain, relaxing as his hand slipped from mine.

"Danny?..." I whispered, tears spilling onto my cheeks as I watched Phantom—no, as I watched Danny, die before my eyes.

_Can't be…_

"No…" The words slipped past my lips, my mouth quivering, my eyes going wide. "You can't…Y-you're not…"

My voice died out, quieting to just a terrified whimper as I realized just how cold the pooling ectoplasm felt, just how much had had soaked into my knees.

_No…_

_Danny…_

…_My Danny_

My breath caught in my throat, my heart beating faster as I saw what happened. What really happened. What he'd really done to save my life.

"No…Danny, I…" I whispered, the corners of my mouth upturned in a strained smile as I pulled his hand from the floor. "You don't have to worry…I'm not mad…"

I couldn't see anymore, could hardly breathe, the world crashing around me, growing dimmer in tune to Danny's fading glow.

"I love you…But I…" My voice quivered, one hand tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear, "d-don't forgive you…"

A shuddering sob wrenched past my lips, tears streaming as I realized I wasn't going to wake up from this nightmare. "I can't forgive you…

"Because…Danny…You haven't-…haven't done anything wrong..."

I had to shut my eyes against the sudden flash of light that engulfed my vision, fading to sparks behind my eyelids as I cracked one eye open.

"There's nothing to forgive…."

Laying on the ground, his white shirt quickly soaking up the steadily pooling blood, was the frail, black-haired boy I would have sacrificed the world for. His face, drained of color, looked even frailer now, so weak, so prone, but I couldn't look away.

"I just hope…You'll forgive me, Danny…I'm sorry….

"I'm sorry…"

The last of my composure crumbled. My shuddering, sniffling cries gave way to the growing misery in my heart, swelling to a tortured, uncontrolled, jagged sob that ripped from my mouth, my whole world gone—destroyed—in his lifeless body.

"_It's okay…I forgive you."_


	2. Heroes Don't Shatter

_This one is a complete experiment in writing style. It's very...different from anything else I've written. However, I will note there is some blood, gore, and gratuitous angst, if you're not into that kind of thing. Anyway, please enjoy! Reviewers are absolutely loved!_

_..._

It's only natural to fear death.

When all our primal instincts are hardwired for survival, the innate terror in the face of death is one of the most powerful feelings we have. Even more so, it's hardwired that we fear the dead, the rotting remains of some damned soul that have grasped onto their consciousness, wraiths that feed off the life energy of any unknowing victim.

Still, a small community of people exists in a nearly nameless town, people who refused to succumb to this fear, even when presented with the shadows of the dead each and every day. An unwavering sense of security blanketed them from the horror of the dead. The months spent under the watchful eye of their protector, in truth just a young boy seemingly as dead as the ghosts who haunted the town, had bred an immunity to that fear. The people didn't know terror, didn't know horror, living simply under the protection of the phantom figure they so openly celebrated. He was their hero, their icon.

And the people deeply believed that heroes can't be broken.

The community, the people that walked and breathed as a whole, felt the first ripples of fear late one December evening. A boy, no older than six, was found dead in the street, face down in a pool of his own blood, the rubber kickball he had held punctured at his side. Jordy Harris's death was quickly hushed, the case deemed cold, and the photo of his body never released. Still now, a ripple of discomfort floats through the station's dense air whenever the photo is mentioned, the seasoned police officers shuddering at the memory of what they saw. A view into death was integral with their job, and the murdered boy in the photo wasn't what unnerved them. No, it was the two, distant, phantasmal pupils that shined in the back of the picture. Nearly twenty feet behind the body, almost hidden in the shadows, stood the town's icon, his mouth slightly gaping, his fluorescent pupils tortured and contorted with seemingly inhuman agony at the sight of the murdered boy. The world is an evil place at times, and little boys are easily broken, but not heroes. Heroes are different. Heroes are solid. Heroes can never look so broken.

More than that, _their _hero couldn't look so broken. He wassolid. He wasinfallible. He couldn't break.

The picture was wrong. There wasn't any other explanation.

And the first ghost fatality was deemed a simple homicide.

The second victim came three days later. Amy Collins was gutted alive, her glistening entrails pulled from her body with a sickening squelch. The figure bearing over her cackled madly in delight, its putrid claws wrapped tightly around her mutilated body. Yes, Amy Collins was gutted alive, with a crowd of horrified people looking on, their feet frozen to the mall's marble flooring. Some witnesses remember their hero flying into the fray; fewer remember exactly how the fight went, exactly when the nameless spirit was disposed of by their unfailing hero. Yet somehow, nearly every witness present remembers the trembling horror in their hero's eyes, the scream that was dead in his throat, as he knelt down by the sliced victim. Everyone remembers the way their hero dissolved into a small boy, strangled sobs tearing past his throat at the sight of his citizen—dead. No one could deny it. No one looking on could see their flawless hero, and for the first time as a whole, they were terrified.

Their icon was breaking.

Experts failed to explain it; terrified citizens had no idea why, but the ghosts were turning. They were feral. They were mindless. And they had an unquenchable desire to spill blood. The deaths piled up, each more gruesome that the last, until the media found no joy in reporting them. The killings were open, gruesome, and so sudden, that their hero came each time, met with the mangled figure of his citizen—breathless, and already dead. The citizens just watched in quiet horror, aware of the growing insanity in their hero's tortured gaze. Every appearance he made was marred by the guilt-ridden horror in his face, by the distant panic in his eyes, like he was reliving each and every gruesome scene in his head. Silently, a terrified people watched their savoir crumble to pieces.

The kids didn't play Phantom anymore. A taboo fell over the pastime, once just for the innocent joy of banishing the pretend evils of their unkempt playrooms, now, even the youngest seemed slowly to understand that their beloved game wasn't fun anymore; The game meant death, and the boys locked their worship away, terrified of their lost faith.

Weeks passed, then months, the attacks growing more feral, and more violent, and more inevitable. Until finally, on the three months' anniversary of Jordy Harris's death, their idol vanished.

Their hero was gone, no trace of the savoir left behind in the paranoid town.

Some citizens accepted it with a quiet, mournful understanding. The boy they worshipped had proven how fragile he was deep down—how really, he was always just a boy. They saw the way his spirit crumbled at each death, how his hair lost its shine, his eyes lost their spark, and his pupils stayed forever focused on a gruesome scene that wasn't there. Everyone saw it in his public appearances, when he tried to establish protocol that could hopefully keep everyone safe. But now, nothing meant safety anymore, and the truth of it seemed to shine in the eyes of the two teens who flanked him at every meeting. He was gone now, and the citizens didn't have it in their hearts to blame him. A few felt an uncomfortable uncertainty creep into their hearts at the sheer suddenness of his disappearance. It felt off, that now, of all times, he surrender his role. They'd watched him fight on time and time again, pushing through each death that tore him up inside. They'd seen him cling to his role as hero, even after the raven haired girl was dropped from 40 feet up, her body broken on impact with the hard concrete below, the world silent except for the mindless cackling of her killer that had rippled through the air. Phantom had just knelt by her body, silent, distant, stroking the girl's soft hair, sticky now with blood, until police led the listless boy away from his dead friend. Three weeks had passed since then, twelve more deaths had occurred, and only now did he vanish. And once they saw he truly wasn't coming back, the whole town couldn't keep from wondering why he vanished now, how this last death was any different from the others, why he fought for so long to just vanish without warning,—

—and why, of all the horrible deaths he'd witnessed, of all the dying screams he heard, of all the innocent victims whose blood stained the streets, it was this last death, the death of the ghost hunters' son, that drove him away for good.


	3. Trial

His eyes scanned the length of the room, taking in every tiny detail that never really set in his mind. Everyone so rigid, so unmoving, he couldn't take it. A tiny spasm seized his hand despite his own attempts to sit perfectly still, mirroring them. It was a nervous twitch that he couldn't fight off, especially when the suited man drew steadily closer. He wanted to run, but he kept himself seated, hands twitching, as the man approached. His fingers ached with the strain his anxiety put on them, flexing and unflexing, for days it seemed. Instead he balled them into the satiny edges of the tie that chafed his neck. So wrong, that tie, it just felt so wrong.

"Mr…Phantom," the approaching man seemed to tense at the formality of the name, and Phantom merely twisted his tie, "in your affidavit, you admit to being at the corner of Lakeside and Main at approximately 2:30 on March 17th. Is this correct?"

"Yes," Phantom whispered into the microphone. His eyes scanned the open room again, nervous tears pricking behind his lids. He couldn't wipe them away, not with his hand buried in his navy blue tie.

"Was this during or after the murders?"

"During…a-and after. Both. I never left." His head fell to his chest, eyes burning into the wooden podium. "I never left."

"You said you _witnessed _the crime. Can you please explain that statement?"

"There's…not much to explain about that. I was there, and then this ghost attacked, then he was gone, and I didn't follow him." His eyes shot up to the silent audience, but they couldn't linger long. "I never left."

"What did the assailant look like?"

"I don't know." Phantom shook his head. "I didn't _see _him coming…And after, I didn't bother trying to chase him."

"What did he sound like?"

"I don't know."

"Can you offer _any _description at all?"

"…No sir."

The attorney stared back with his mouth pursed. It seemed to be a tic, Phantom noticed. The man asked each question with his lips never parting far enough. After each question, they closed too tightly. The wrinkles around his face scrunched together each time he did that, his thin, gray goatee puckering right along with them. He hardly seemed to breathe, and with the way he tugged at his too-tight tie, Phantom almost believed it. Maybe that was why he couldn't let go of his own tie, Phantom thought, watching the lawyer toy with his chafing collar. The man's beady eyes settled on Phantom, and the boy immediately snapped out of his thoughts.

"Now then," the lawyer drew the words out, enunciating them with his too-tight lips. Phantom could feel the dread sink into his heart as the lawyer turned back to him, building the moment. "if you were _not _there to fight the ghost, as your superhero persona would suggest, _why _were you with the four victims on the day—no, at the _moment—_they died?"

"I've told you already!" Phantom leaned forward in his seat, his eyes wide and terrified as he surveyed the room. "Please…I've _told _you so many times."

"But you haven't told our fair jury yet." The man swept his hand to the jury box, presenting them like a salesman would. Twelve sets of eyes pinned Phantom to the spot as he opened and closed his mouth.

"I _am _Danny!"

"Danny…who?" The lawyer cocked his head, more and more theatrical as the case dragged on. Phantom couldn't stand it.

"Danny _Fenton!" _He seemed to choke on the last word, his eyes trained on the far corner of the court room. He would pretend afterward he hadn't heard it, but his ears caught the tiny cry—rage and sorrow and murder all in one little noise—that escaped from the grieving woman and her bulky husband in the far end of the room. Phantom couldn't watch them, so again, he turned away.

"Danny Fenton is dead, Mr. Phantom."

"I know…" Phantom muttered, the strength ripped from his voice. "But so am I."

"Mr. Phantom, you were around for almost a year before Daniel Fenton and his friends died, is that correct?" The lawyer pinched the edges of his glasses, not looking at Phantom, not responding to the answer.

"Yes…but I told you before I—"

"Plase, tell the _jury."_

Phantom took a deep breath, turning to face the jury. "I…I told him before, I _am _Danny Fenton. I always have been—just never told anybody." His eyes darted back and forth, more frantic by the second. "Really! You don't believe me, but honestly I am! I could change…change back and forth whenever I wanted."

The lawyer finally let go of his glasses, his hands fiddling with the tie again. It was a dull green, almost gray in the harsh light. Somehow it sickened Phantom. "Mr. Phantom, we have testimony from Daniel's own parents that both you and Daniel have been sighted in different places at the same time. On occasion right next to each oth—"

"Excuse me, is there a question here, Mr. Stratford?" The judge carried her voice over the lawyer's, and for that split second Phantom was grateful for her presence.

"I will rephrase, your Honor. Mr. Phantom, how would you then _explain _being sighted in a separate location from your supposed self?"

"Once! Just once!" Phantom stuck up his index finger for the jury to see. "And that was because my parents had a device that could split me apa—"

He cut off midsentence as the strangled cry broke again, louder and more painful than before, from the two Fentons seated in the far end of the room. "Make him stop! Please Jack, make the lying bastard stop!" Phantom froze in place as the woman turned to him, misery and madness and anger all seething on her face. "Don't talk about my son like that you bas—"

Her husband grabbed her just as the judge banged her gavel.

"YOU KILLED MY SON!"

"Mrs. Fenton you are _not _to behave like that in my courtroom, or I'll have you thrown out for contempt." The judge set her gavel down. "The jury is to disregard Mrs. Fenton's outburst."

_Too late. _Phantom thought, watching the shaking in his hands. _The damage is done. _

The lawyer, Mr. Stratford, merely went back to playing with his tie. "Mr. Phantom, you claim to have shared a body with the deceased, correct?"

Phantom answered, quieter and weaker than before. "Not 'shared' a body. I wa—"

"And are you aware Daniel Fenton's physical body was recovered for autopsy?"

"Well yeah they told m—"

"And yet you were held for questioning as the body was taken away?"

"Yes I—"

"Did you know Daniel Fenton's physical body was buried two days ago? Yet _you _are here?"

"Of course I spli—"

"No further questions."

"What do you mean no more questions?" Phantom huffed, nerves and hatred bringing him to his feet. "You didn't let me answer a single goddamn one!"

"Counselor, let the defendant _answer _your questions," the judge hissed, venom tainting her voice. Yet, she refused to come to Phantom's aid at any point before.

"Oh, yes your Honor," Mr. Stratford answered, his voice suddenly friendly. It set the hairs of Phantom's neck on end.

"Of course you recovered Danny Fenton's body." Despite the anger pulsing through Phantom's veins, he risked a short glance to the Fentons in the far end, and quickly backed off in his voice. "Ghosts split from the human when they die. That's like…third grade stuff when you learn what a ghost _is. _I can't change back anymore because I _am _a ghost now." He lowered his voice, his eyes falling to the floor again. "And Fenton is dead…"

Stratford paused for a second, contemplating what the boy said, before he went back to pinching his glasses. "No further questions," he told the jury.

"Defense, would you care to re-examine your witness?"

Phantom's lawyer looked up from his table, his magnified eyes startled under his thick glasses. "N-no your Honor." The lawyer pushed the stack of papers together on his desk, fidgeting with the loose notes surrounding him. The jury's attention lingered on him for only a second, Phantom's for a second more, as he hoped with all his heart for some support from the fidgeting, thickly-glassed man. For all the hope Phantom placed in the bulgy-eyed man, no help came. His lawyer, his court appointed lawyer, was leaving him dead in the water, and Phantom knew it. They'd assured him the man representing him would be reliable, yet fresh out of college, Phantom figured he was much better on paper than in practice.

"Mr. Phantom, you may step down," the judge ordered, her tone almost as icy as it was with Mr. Stratford. "Your next witness?"

Mr. Stratford loosened and unloosened his tie. Phantom hardly caught it as he slunk back to the seat beside his lawyer. "Well, if she's feeling up to it, I would like to call Mrs. Fenton to the stand." He turned around, revealing the balding, wispy back of his head to the jury. "Mrs. Fenton?"

Phantom didn't look as she passed him by. He doubted she did either. In fact, he doubted she'd ever look at him again.

"Now, Mrs. Fenton, you're acquainted with all four of the deceased, is that correct?"

Mrs. Fenton nodded slowly, unsure whether to look at Stratford or the jury. "Yes. Sam and Tucker were my son's best friends; I saw them nearly every day…A-and of course…Danny and Jazz were my son and daughter."

"Did you see them on the 17th?"

Again, she nodded slowly. Like Phantom, she answered into the podium. "I saw all four that morning, when Sam and Tucker came over. Danny and his friends told me they were just going out for lunch. It was raining, and Jazz told me she'd drive them. They didn't say anything more to me."

"Did any of them seem to be acting strangely that day?"

"No…not at all."

"Did any of them act like one member of their group happened to be a closet _superhero _by chance?"

"Objection!" Phantom's lawyer stood up, his squeaky little voice breaking over the courtroom. "Leading."

"Sustained," the judge grumbled, and Stratford when back to his tie.

"Disregard the question then. Mrs. Fenton, do you think it's possible for a human to be 'half ghost'?"

"No…" she answered.

"Do you think it's possible your own son was a half-ghost?"

"No," she answered again, more passion in her voice.

"Do you think it's possible," Stratford turned to the defendant's table, "that _this ghost _is your son?"

"No." It wasn't passion in her voice now, but anger.

"Why do you say that?"

Phantom leaned in close to his lawyer, panic and fear in his eyes. "Can't you do anything?" he whispered into the man's ears.

"I don't…I don't think so…" His lawyer sifted through his notes again, the thick glasses falling down his nose. With each passing second, Phantom felt his hope dwindling.

Mrs. Fenton looked up at the jury now, grabbing the microphone in her hand. "Why? Because the police had me talk with Phantom after…after the incident." He eyes swung around to Phantom. "After he said he was my son."

"What makes you so sure he can't be, Mrs. Fenton?"

"He tried to convince me so desperately, right after I _saw _my son l-lying there…in the street. I saw what was left of him and now this _ghost _asked me to give him a chance. A-and you know what I did? I gave it to him. I gave him the chance." Tears poked at her eyes, but she hardly moved to wipe them away. "For just a moment there, I was so desperate to have my son back, I-I wanted to believe him. I was willing to _believe _he was my son," she moaned, hatred tainting her voice. Yet still she continued. "And so I asked him…asked him things only Danny would know."

"Can't you do anything?" Phantom hissed again to his lawyer, his gloveless hands wearing a tear in his tie. The lawyer just shook his head.

"How many of your questions could Phantom answer, Mrs. Fenton?" Stratford asked.

"None." Her voice was icy cold, cold enough to break something inside Phantom. "He just sat there wide eyed and blubbering." She shut her eyes, her head shaking. "…I can still see it."

"I just saw my friends murdered! I just revealed my biggest goddam secret! I…I couldn't think straight!" Phantom kept his voice low enough for only his lawyer to hear, still the desperation cut heavy as a knife. "Do something," Phantom pleaded through tear-filled eyes. "God dammit do something. You're my lawyer."

"I can't right now." The glasses finally slipped from the buggy man's face, clanging loudly enough against the ground for the whole court to hear. Two silent seconds passed as he reached down for his glasses, the whole courtroom at rapt attention. He wiped them on his tie, face falling as he placed them back on his nose with one cracked lens. The buzzing silence filled Phantom's ears, and he finally couldn't take it any more. Maybe they weren't looking at him right now, just the dopy lawyer beside him, but he finally had enough. His mind shut the whole courtroom out as he tried to lose himself in remembering the day.

March 17th. He'd gone to the Nasty Burger with Sam and Tucker…and Jazz of course. He didn't remember what they ate, what they said, none of that. They just walked outside, down the street, Sam said something, Tucker too, but he never responded—his ears exploded before he could. One sudden dizzying pop, an explosion really, that blew out his hearing. The whole world spun for just a second, long enough for the wetness dripping from his ears to seem peculiar, long enough for a stab of agony to register in his stomach. It hurt more than anything he could remember, yet it hurt far away, lasting just long enough for him to watch the shards of an ectoplasmic bomb fizzle and die away. It wasn't long enough to see where his friends had landed. It wasn't long enough to catch the glassy look on his sister's face as her legs landed 15 feet beside her. It wasn't long enough to understand just how much blood could get matted in Sam's raven hair, or to see how tiny and broken Tucker looked with his stomach slit and his blood drained away. No, that came later, that came with Danny finding himself crumpled up beside his own dead fragments—white gloved and glowing. More than all that, it wasn't until he pulled himself up that he saw what it was like to be truly separated. Not like a personality split, but existing here, while his body laid beside him. He just stared for the longest time, his eyes running over the pooling blood beneath the body's ears—his ears. He ran his eyes over the charred stump of his left leg, unable for the life of his to find where the rest of it had gone. A tiny shard of concrete pierced straight through his back, and for the longest time he patted his own stomach where the fragment impaled him, unable to find anything at all.

His friends came next, Sam's eyes staring at him, asking him something. He didn't know how to answer. For just a moment, he got angry at her eyes, that they wouldn't tell him what they wanted. But he simply patted his stomach and waited while the anger faded. He could blame them—the eyes—they looked so strange. Of course they wondered why they looked so strange. But he couldn't answer. He didn't know how. Tucker's eyes wouldn't ask him anything, because one was gone in a bloody mess, and the other was too busy wondering where its friend had gone to ask Danny, and Danny understood that. Jazz's didn't ask anything because Jazz doesn't ask him anything—she answers. So he tried to ask her, but those eyes didn't say anything—they just listened to the sirens in the background. That's right, the sirens came, and the men pulled him away from all the eyes. They asked him things, in the wake of an ectoplasmic explosion, with all those eyes, but he didn't answer much. A ghost. Right next to the ectoplasmic explosion. They caught on quickly.

But wait he did answer one thing for them. Just one. _Do you know who these people are, Phantom?_

_Yes. _

_Who are they?_

_Him right there. See him? _He pointed his gloved hand at the nearest victim, the one he was cradled near when they arrived. _That's me. _That's when his eyes shot open, sick understanding dawning on his face. A ghost attack, and he didn't stop it. He stops ghost attacks, but not now, and now they were dead. Those eyes were dead, and it was because of him. _Oh no…_ He muttered, to the police, hanging onto their jackets. _It's my fault. I killed them. Oh no._

Then they sat him down. All for the longest time. And he just sat there because they told him to. That is, until they brought in the woman, and she started asking questions all over.

_They said you're Danny….my Danny. _Her voice was so wrong. He didn't like it that way.

_I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't be mad please._

_Are you really?...You can't be. I just saw him. I just saw he's dead._

_I'm Danny. _He nodded vigorously. _Please don't be mad._

She started crying, and he couldn't remember whether or not he'd begged her to stop.

_Just prove it to me. Your bear's name, Danny, please tell me what your bear's name is…_

_I don't know…_

_Of course you do. You'd never forget Danny, just…just please tell me!_

_I don't know._

_You do._

_I don't._

And she asked him something else. What was it? He didn't answer; he'd remember if he answered. No. The woman just kept asking these questions over and over, her voice getting worse by the minute, until finally she wouldn't ask anymore. How long did it take? How long until she stopped asking him questions?

He just remembered her face changed; it finally changed into something else after so long. The desperation and sadness mixed into pure white rage. She stood up, furious, and he couldn't for the life of him understand why.

_Of course not. What am I doing? You're—you're not Danny. You can't be. _She lowered her eyes, letting the tears fall. _A ghost. I'm not this dumb. _She left, her feet stomping, but the rage hardly reaching her voice. _Why would I believe something so stupid?_

He felt like she would have slammed the door, but then Phantom realized he was outside. Still outside. Where the police told him to sit. Why was he sitting, again?

"The bear. She asked me about the bear," Phantom muttered into the courtroom desk. He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, elbows on the table. "I don't remember his name." What else did she ask him?

He knew he should have been listening to the rest of Mrs. Fenton's examination. Even more so, he should have listened to the cross examination, but the sleepless days awaiting trial collapsed on his brain, shutting him out from the world. He just kept his head down, hands supporting it, muttering just to himself, "My bear."

Of course he remembered his bear. Of course he remembered now. Away from the eyes and the blood and his own dead body. He had it for years—slept with it every night. But by the time he was six, he scrapped it. The bear was such an old memory, he hadn't thought of it in years. But it was there, in his head, buried. Buried somewhere.

Until the jury was adjourned—the trial over and he hadn't even realized. Those twelve were gone now, locked up somewhere to decide his fate. His lawyer led him out of the courtroom, but he hardly knew he was following, just pulling at the tie that chafed his neck.

They returned quickly, good or bad, he didn't know. He was simply too spent to think about it.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"We have, your Honor." _The bear had a name. Of course he should remember. _"On the four charges of murder in the first degree, we find the defendant, Daniel Phantom,"

_Jazz named the bear. I was too young._

"guilty."

The silence in the courtroom broke, but Phantom did not make a sound. Listlessly, his lawyer led him away, no family or friends around to support him. The sentencing would be determined later, but the shock hadn't even set in when he was led past the far end of the room where the Fentons sat. Just a moment, for just a moment Phantom walked by them, and Mrs. Fenton's eyes met his.

"Come on," his lawyer muttered to him, but Phantom kept his feet planted, his eyes boring into Mrs. Fenton's. The bitter hatred in her gaze didn't faze him, still he stood his ground, blocking her way out. Any second, she'd force him out of her way—he could feel it.

"Brinclehof."

Neither moved a muscle. Phantom kept his eyes trained on hers, no emotion in his. Hers faltered though, a strange kind of weakness leaking into their icy cold surface.

"I remember now. You were teaching Jazz about the diatomic atoms, that they all came together to spell Brinclhof. I got my bear that same day, and since I couldn't think of anything, Jazz named it for me. Dad wrote it on the tag, and he spelled it with an 'e'." Phantom stopped, and for the moment, his lawyer didn't bother pushing him onward. "Brinclehof the bear."

Heavy silence pressed the whole room down, until Phantom put one foot in front of the other. "Is he still missing an eye?" he muttered into the ground, still loud enough for Mrs. Fenton to hear.

He didn't wait for an answer though. Phantom kept moving, step by step, out to face his sentence. He didn't stop for the dumbfounded gazes of those who overheard. He didn't stop for the frantic cries that chased him down the hallway. _Wait! No please, make him stop! _It's doubtful he understood it anyway, just one foot in front of the other, barely hiding the tears in his eyes.


	4. Five Day Promise

Over the past five days, they had managed to keep their promise to him. They kept it against their better judgment. They kept it despite hour long discussions that always convinced them otherwise. Once or twice they'd nearly broken it, because they knew their silence was harmful, deadly even. In the end, they kept it, whether from love for him, or fear for being wrong, or pure loyalty to their word, they couldn't tell. But regardless, they kept their lips sealed until his deadline passed. Five days in, the deadline broke, and they arrived at his house near the crack of dawn. She had a videotape clutched in her hands, he merely ran his nervous fingers over the PDA in his pocket. His hand was too shaky to hit the doorbell on his first try. He took a moment to calm his shaky breathing, and pressed the bell on his second try.

At 5 am, there wasn't any background noise to in contest with the bell. Through the heavy wooden door, the chiming reached both their ears. It died away after a moment, leaving the two to shiver in the silence. She ran her hands over the videotape for good measure, before one bulky hand opened the door. No formalities, no greetings, just two tired eyes met them at the entrance, eyes less than surprised to see them.

"Sam, Tucker, come on in." The man stepped backward, clearing the way for the two smaller teens. His hand fell from the door, and his pink slippers hissed softly on the cold floor. "Maddie has some coffee on. We've got enough for you two."

"That's alright," Sam answered. She put one hesitant foot over the doorway, the other quickly following. Her eyes darted to the tape in her hands, then back to the man. "We don't want to be a bother."

Jack cocked an eyebrow at the tape, and she held it closer to her chest. "What have you got there?"

Her gaze wavered, to Tucker and to the man and to the tape. The purple eyes finally rested on her friend. "It's something we have to show you. You and Mrs. Fenton. It's important."

Jack's eyes widened a bit, pronouncing the dark circles under his lids. He didn't ask them anything further. His feet dragged across the floor, making more room for Tucker who hadn't yet moved. In truth, there was plenty of room for the second teen, but his nerved kept him in the cold. Jack waved him inside, until Tucker's reluctant feet followed. "Of course. Come inside; it's cold out."

Tucker nodded in agreement, watching his feet as he stepped over the doorframe.

"Mads! Sam and Tucker are here. They've got something to show us."

Maddie's head poked around the corner. The heavy white lighting of the kitchen shadowed her eyes, bringing out the bags like her husband's. She blinked a few times, and Sam noticed the older woman wore no makeup. "Oh?" she asked, not quite able to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice. She ran one hand through her disheveled hair, keeping the other one clenched firmly on the steaming mug in her hand. "Would they care for some coffee?"

"No, no. I asked them already. They said no."

She nodded her head, disappearing for one moment to fetch Jack's mug. She came back around, handing the slightly bigger cup to her husband. He didn't bother drinking any of it.

Jack watched the ripples sloshing in his coffee cup, before his gaze strayed to the tape again. His fingers tightened around the handle, a few drops of coffee inadvertently spilling over the side. "Should we get Jazz too?..."

"…Sure," Sam answered after a quiet moment, caught off guard. For some reason, the question seemed to surprise her.

"Here, let me have that," Tucker whispered from beside her, and she dropped the tape in his hands. He moved slowly to the television set, kneeling down beside the VHS player. Tucker ran his free hand over the dusty top. A thin layer of grime came away with his fingers, but he paid it little mind. "Does this still work?" he asked.

Jack glanced quickly at his coffee cup before following Tucker to the VHS player. "It should," He bent down too, balancing his too full cup of coffee on his leg. "I think it's plugged in."

Tucker nodded, slipping the tape into the dusty flaps. He silently flipped the TV on and quickly silenced the news program before it could make a sound. He worked diliengently, but his movements were sloppy, conscious that the other three were watching him.

Maddie glanced to her husband, opening her mouth to say something. After a second's thought she shut it and simply motioned toward the staircase. Jack nodded.

"Jazz!" Maddie called upstairs, moving only a few steps until she was hovering between the kitchen and the living room.

"Yeah?" Jazz's voice came back muffled, but the pounding of her steps came louder, closer, overhead.

"Sam and Tucker brought something for us."

Jazz's face appeared over the banister, her hair swinging over the edge. "What?" She surveyed the room, taking in what she could.

"A video."

Surprise flickered across Jazz's face, but she didn't bother responding. Silently, curiously, she made her way down the stairs, her little feet barely making a sound. Maddie, Sam, and Jack watched her join crowd. Suddenly, Sam felt sick looking into the tiny spark of hope that burned in Jazz's eyes. Her gaze traveled around the room, and she could see the same kind of hopefulness in Maddie and Jack. She wanted to end it now, make that look disappear, but it didn't feel right snuffing out their hope so soon. The videotape would do that just fine once they realized it wasn't going to solve anything.

"Don't get your hopes up…" she muttered into the ground. At least, she thought she did. She might have spoken so softly nothing actually came out of her mouth. Sam couldn't tell.

"Got it," Tucker announced, not as triumphant as he usually sounded with his technological expertise. He simply motioned for the standing audience to take a seat, and he retired to the chair in the far end of the room.

"What is it?" Jazz asked, taking a seat beside her father. Tucker waved his hand, silencing her as the video came on screen.

"_Alrighty then…"_ Tucker's grainy voice broke through the speakers, the screen filled with the floor of Danny's bedroom. _"I _think_ that got it working…Yeah…Yeah the light's blinking."_

The video camera swung upward, settling just slightly off-center of the black haired boy standing in the middle of the room. The cameraman, Tucker by the sound of it, slowly centered the shot. Danny stared back with a blank face, his video-self looking nearly as tired as the real people watching from the living room.

"_You sure it's on?"_ He sounded less than amused.

"_Yup."_ Tucker's voice overlapped Danny's. _"The blinking light's on. That means it's going."_

"_Are you sure?"_ Danny raised an eyebrow to the camera. _"Because Jazz tried to record our second grade play with this and she didn't get any of it. I don't think the light mean it's g—"_

"_Dude, you're fine. I promise it's recording."_ From the shift in the camera, Tucker likely poked his head out from behind. _"I spent my childhood ripping these things apart. It's recording."_

"_Alright…"_ Danny muttered, less than convinced. _"Just don't want to do this twice,"_ he said, quieter now, looking off-screen. The camera followed Danny's gaze to the dark-haired girl sitting on his bed.

"_You won't have to,"_ she answered him, crossing and uncrossing her legs. _"Tucker knows what he's doing."_

"_So let's get started!"_ Tucker cleared his throat. _"I'm here today with the infamous Danny Fenton, the only boy known to trap himself in a box smaller than himself." _

"_Dude, serious,"_ Danny grumbled.

"_-for three days straight!"_

"_Tucker!"_

"_Just trying to lighten the mood,"_ Tucker laughed. _"Come on, you look like you need it."_ The camera zoomed in slightly. _"I mean, you're pale as a ghost!"_

"_You're not funny."_ Danny narrowed his eyes, but honestly, he was pretty pale. Dark circles poked out from beneath his eyes, the shine dulled in his pupils. It was kind of an unsettling sight.

"_You'll be laughing about this in a week,"_ Tucker said flippantly. _"You escaped, didn't you?"_

"_Hardly."_ Danny shifted his weight onto his other leg. _"Skulker had me in there pretty long."_ He ran a hand through his unkempt hair_. "Basically blind once I got out…three days without light sucks."_

"_I'd feel worse for you if it wasn't the box ghost who trapped you,"_ Tucker giggled off screen.

"_It was Skulker's technology!"_ Danny snapped. _"That counts as Skulker."_

"_Sure."_ Tucker was happily unconvinced.

"_We're wasting time…"_ Danny muttered to the camera. _"You can crop this part out of the video, right Tucker?"_

"_Sure thing dude."_

"_Good."_ Danny blew a few loose strands of hair out of his face. _"I don't want to be remembered as 'the only ghost to be trapped by the box ghost'."_ He stared into the screen. _"Which I'm not! Skulker did all the work."_

"_You just trapped yourself in the box."_

"_Shut up dude."_

"_Alright alright,"_ Tucker answered, clearing his throat again. _"Time to get serious. This is serious."_

The anger left Danny's eyes, suddenly replaced with a kind of anxiety as he met the camera head on. Neither of his friends spoke, and after a silent moment, he spoke directly to the camera.

"_Alright…It is,"_ he glanced at his watch, _"4:36 pm on Monday the 27__th__."_

"_28__th__, Dude."_

"_Crap, 28__th__. And I'm…well I'm grounded in my room. Sam and Tucker aren't supposed to be here, but hopefully you'll never see this. So yeah…I won't get in trouble…" _Danny gave a weak chuckle to the camera, his nerves getting the best of him. He looked away, suddenly unsure how to continue. Tucker egged him on from behind the camera.

"_So _why_ are you grounded in your room?"_

"_I disappeared for three days without telling anyone beforehand. Also I didn't take my phone with me."_

"_Where'd you tell everybody you went?"_

"_Don't know that yet."_ Danny looked off to his right toward his bed. _"I'm kind of counting on you guys to help me come up with a convincing lie."_ He looked back to the camera. "_I'm not allowed to leave my room until I tell Mom and Dad where I've been. So uh…here I am."_ Danny motioned around himself. _"In my room…Grounded…Yeah."_

"_We've got that,"_ Tucker pressed from behind the camera he held. _"You need to get to the point. _Why_ are you making this video?"_

Emotion wiped itself almost entirely from Danny's face, save for a tiny twitch in his lips, he'd completely frozen. Quickly he looked over his shoulder, focusing on the closed doors, before turning back to the camera. _"No one can hear us, right?"_

"_You tell me dude. It's your house."_

"_Okay. Yeah, I don't think so."_ Danny's voice dropped anyway.

"_Any day now Danny—not like the rest of us have a life or anything."_

Sam chuckled off camera, but Tucker chose to ignore it.

The camera never left its blue-eyed subject. Danny remained silent, scratching nervously at his neck while the silence waited for him to speak.

"_I…should have written some lines down or something,"_ he finally muttered, glancing around like he might find notecards stashed in the carpet.

"_No Danny, this should just be you."_ Sam's voice carried a little louder than before, despite the fact that she didn't enter the screen. _"Just say what you're thinking."_

"_Okay…"_ he grudgingly answered. His eyes trailed around the room, and finally settled silently on the camera. _"I'm making this video because I've been gone for the past few days—unexpectedly—and I almost didn't come back. I did escape…eventually, but for a while there—trapped, that is—I didn't think I would. And I was alone there, for the longest time, wondering how I'd ever…explain anything to my family, if I really never got out. Wondering what you guys would ever really know. So I'm making this now, because I want to explain, in case I disappear one day and never come back."_

He rubbed his neck, finally breaking eye contact with the camera. _"This is weird, talking like this. I feel like I'm writing my own obituary."_

"_Well you are dead, aren't you? It makes sense."_

"_I'm not _dead_ dead."_ Danny glared at the camera. _"Just kind of…like in a way."_

"_Well that's a good jumping off point,"_ Tucker spoke from behind the camera. _"Tell us why you're dead 'like in a way'."_

"_Yeah…"_ Danny rubbed his neck more violently, completely avoiding eye contact now. _"Ow,"_ he muttered, wincing as he lowered his hand.

"_What?"_

"_My neck's still pretty bruised. I think I'm making it worse."_

"_Well stop then."_

"_It's not like I _mean_ to."_ Danny started twisting his fingers together. _"Well the thing about that. About my neck I mean. The thing about why it's bruised is, like, I've been in a box?"_ His eyes widened a bit. _"Crap, can you cut that out of the film? That sounds stupid."_

"_Sure."_ Tucker didn't sound too honest.

"_By _box_ I mean an ectoplasmic prison—like a Fenton thermos but more…box like."_

"_But Danny, _humans_ can't get trapped in the Fenton thermos."_ Bravado pierced Tucker's voice, theatrical at best and sarcastic at worst.

"_Can you cut that out? I'm trying to figure out how to say this."_

"_Sorry dude, just trying to lead you on."_

Danny rolled his eyes_. "Humans don't, but I can. Because I guess…I haven't really been honest. With any of you. What I'm about to say, I want this to stay hidden—no one can ever see this unless I honestly go missing. And not like I'm gone a night, or two nights or any of that_. _That's not what I mean. I only want you guys to see this if I've really gone missing."_ He stuck up his hand to the camera, all five fingers spread. _"Five days. If I'm gone five straight days, then I want you guys to see this…because maybe I'm not coming back after that point."_

Danny paused, but Tucker didn't answer. The cameraman finally seemed to realize they'd hit the point of no return, that any further joking would be in bad taste.

"_Because…"_ Danny continued, _"it's possible something might happen to me. And I might not come back. Not intentionally—I'd never leave on purpose. But there are some people…well 'people'"_ Danny made finger quotes, _"that wouldn't want me alive anymore. I've made some enemies, not like on purpose, but I was purposely doing the things that made enemies for me."_

"_Maybe you should get to the point dude. This would be pretty brutal if I didn't know what you were talking about."_

"_Okay."_ Danny's hand shot back to his neck again. _"Okay okay you're right. I just mean, I've been having kind of two lives…lately. I'll…I'll just show you, I guess. That's the easiest way to explain it."_ Danny stepped backwards, his whole body coming into frame. His head twisted around to the door, like a nervous tic, before facing the camera again. _"Just first, I'm not evil. I really really promise I'm not."_

His eyes shut in concentration, but his body remained motionless for just a second. It seemed as though the tape had frozen, until a glowing ring formed around his midsection. It split into two, one falling while the other swept over his head. Danny's clothes disappeared, replaced with a midnight black suit. His hair ruffled as the rings shot past it, leaving it bleached white. He opened his eyes—green now—and lowered them, terrified, to the camera.

"_I never really want to tell you this way, through a video, but if I really have gone missing, I don't want to leave it for Jazz and Tucker and Sam to explain."_ The sheer terror in his eyes was hard to look past. _"Mom, Dad, I'm Phantom…" His body shook a bit. "I didn't mean to become a ghost—I didn't even mean to start the whole superhero thing. It just kind of happened. And I was going to tell you about it at first—I really was. But I never found the chance without…being afraid what you'd think."_

His eyes darted around the room, suddenly far more tired than they appeared at any point in the video. His legs wobbled a bit, and his eyes finally settled again on the camera. _"I'm going to sit, okay? I'm tired."_

He didn't bother finding a chair. Instead he bent down, steadying himself with one hand on the ground until he was settled on the floor. The cameraman, Tucker, stayed standing, but bent the camera down to face its subject. In the corner of the screen, the cylindrical edge of a Fenton thermos was resting on the floor.

"_It's not that I don't trust you,"_ Danny continued, looking so much smaller than before. _"It's not that I don't love you, I promise. I just really wanted nothing to change with us, ever. And maybe there's that part of me that's still afraid how you'd react."_ He looked around, unable to maintain eye contact. _"I want to tell you some day, probably. Maybe I'll work up the courage someday. But for now, just trapped in the ghost zone for three days, I couldn't shake the thought of how horrible a son I'd be if I died and never told you why. So I want to tell you in person, someday at some time. But maybe, if I don't get that chance, if I die or something, I at least want to tell you guys in my own voice." _He looked over to the bed again at the girl who never entered the screen. _"Sam and Tucker know everything—and Jazz too—if there's anything else you want to know."_ He looked back into the camera. _"I love you guys. A lot more than I've probably ever said. And I don't care how many times you've gone after Phantom, I've never held it against you. I don't know how you feel, if you're angry I never told you. In that case, I'm sorry. But I do want to tell you, someday at some time, but in case—_just in case _I can't—I made this. Sam's going to keep the tape hidden. And they'll bring it to you guys if I've been missing long enough—five days, okay? I think I'd be able to last at least that long. Or…you know…if I die, you guys should see this tape too. I don't plan to. Really. But just…in case."_

"_Kay, I think that's good."_ Tucker's voice came through the speakers again, most of its energy gone.

"_No! No wait, I…there's got to be more to say."_ Almost reluctantly, Danny phased human again. Without the ghostly glow, he looked so much weaker, so much younger. _"The records. I've got records of all the ghosts I've fought stored on my computer. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz know the password. I never actually told them, but they know it. It's kind of a sucky password."_ With each passing second, the strain became more and more evident in his eyes. The shine had disappeared completely, and the husk of the boy they left behind was almost terrifying to watch.

"_No reason to push yourself."_ The camera swiveled over to Sam, moving upward to put her in screen. _"You can be done."_

"_Wait…no, there's got to be more."_ The camera moved back to Danny. He kept his eyes lowered, boring into his hands. _"What about Vlad? Should I talk about Vlad? Or maybe the accident itself? Both? I could do both."_

"_We've got plenty on Vlad,"_ Sam answered. _"Talk about the accident first."_

"_Yeah, that's a good idea…"_ Danny's ghostly dead eyes looked up again. Before he could start though, the audio cut out on the TV. The video flickered a few times, staticy lines running up and down the screen until it died completely, the blue eyed teen blinking out of existence.

"Oh no." The present-day Sam pushed herself off the couch, kneeling beside the VHS player. She dusted off the top, jammed her thumb into the play button, pressed and re-pressed most of the buttons on the machine, but it did little good. Tucker crouched down beside her, silently inspecting the problem while Sam looked around the room. Her eyes settled first on Jazz. The girl's orange hair was unkempt, pulled into a loose pony tail with strands escaping from both sides. Her eyes had adopted a quiet, painful understanding, subtle tears having left streaks down her face. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton looked entirely different. Their eyes were wide, hurt. Both clutched their full coffee mugs without seeming to realize it. Their mouths had fallen open just the slightest bit, exhaustion or disbelief making Maddie's lower lip tremble.

"Is it broken?" Sam whispered to Tucker, not bothering to look at him.

"Yeah. It's eaten up the tape too." Sam glanced over quickly, just enough to see Tucker pull the video out of the player, trailed by ribbons of iridescent black tape. "It's an old player."

"We'll just have to explain the rest," Sam admitted quietly. She pushed herself to her feet, stepping her way to the side of the couch. She put one hand out to Jack, who looked up at her, uncertain what to do. When he didn't take her hand, she gave in, and fell back into her seat on the couch. "I guess we can talk here then…" Sam watched as Tucker gathered up the remains of the tape ribbons splayed across the floor. "On Wednesday, when Danny went missing, he snuck out of English class to go fight something off. He never came back. We don't know who or what took him, or if he's alive or not, but we're almost certain a ghost is responsible."

"And you didn't tell us sooner?" Maddie finally croaked from beside her husband.

"You saw the tape," Tucker answered, on his feet with the chewed up tape. "We promised him."

"My baby could be dead," she whispered into her mug, "and you didn't bother telling us why? Maybe we could have found him. Maybe we—"

"Don't you think Tucker and I have been looking?" Sam answered, almost defensively. "We've tried everything to track his ectosignature, but it's just gone. We've tried everything to find him, ghost and human."

Two silent tears rolled down Maddie's cheeks. She might have wiped them away, but that meant letting go of her coffee mug, her only tether to reality. "Why would he do it then? If he made this video, why wouldn't he just tell us instead? We would have listened." She choked on her words, her eyes widening as the full weight of the situation hit her. Slowly, her rigid posture loosened, and she fell quietly sobbing into her husband's side. Coffee leaked from the brim of her mug, but no one bothered to stop it.

"Let's get into the kitchen," Tucker said with a tired sigh. "We can try to explain everything we can."

Jack nodded weakly. He picked Maddie up as he rose to his feet, keeping her clutched firmly against himself. They followed Sam almost silently into the kitchen, save for Maddie's muffle cries. Jazz pushed herself from her seat, following right behind them. Tucker glanced down quickly at the mess of glossy ribbon in his hands, spilled out from the chewed up cartridge. After a moment of silent debate, he set the ruined video down on the coffee table, glancing back at it as he followed the rest into the kitchen.

"I hate outdated technology…" he muttered, his back finally turned on it entirely, and trekked after the other four

Behind him, buried underneath the unending mess of black tape, a part of the ribbon stayed firmly lodged in the edge of the cartridge. The end of the video had been completely lost, as that length of film had seemingly been burned over. Not done maliciously, not to destroy evidence, but the burns were fresh—still hot to the touch. The scorched part of the film spelled out a message, the handwriting of the sender no more improved despite years of penmanship instruction from Mr. Lancer:

_Stop Technus._


	5. On Killing Ghosts: Entry One

_Item number 3029_

_This entry is taken from pages 1-12. The first two sentences have been scribbled out, but as they remain legible in the original source, they have been transcribed in underlined print. Two words on page 12 are crossed out in a similar manner, but are again legible. They have been underlined as well. These seem to be the only changes to the journal, as the rest of the entry remains unedited. However, from the binding of the journal, it looks as though four or five previous pages have been ripped out near the front cover. Family members have confirmed the entries are written in the subject's handwriting. The contents are as follows._

* * *

><p>June 18th<p>

Danielle still hasn't shown up.

Danielle is still missing.

Danielle is dead. I think it's my fault.

I'm getting rid of the first few pages, tearing them out right now, because they're wrong. It doesn't really make sense to keep them in the journal anymore. I just feel like an idiot looking at them now.

I guess I need to start new then. The first page is gone, and that's where I outlined all my reasons for having this journal. I don't quite remember every reason, but I can't say it matters, since most of them have changed anyway. At this point at least. I'm trying to sort things out in this journal, so I'll at least re-explain myself here. It's not vital that I do—this journal is just for me anyway—but Jazz says it'll help me sort through my thoughts if I write them all down. So I guess I will explain it here, just for myself. No one else reads this.

Jazz bought this journal for me three weeks back. She keeps one, and she says it helps her to write down things she can't talk to other people about. And hell if that doesn't apply to me, I don't know what does. At first that's what I did. I wrote about a few ghost incidents, the late night patrols, the toll it took on my sleep. You know, things I can't complain about to anyone else, at least without feeling guilty about it. Jazz was right, it did help.

Now though, I'm using it for something a lot more important. I need it to keep my thoughts straight, so I can think this through. Best case scenario, I can use it to prove I'm wrong.

The introduction I wrote on the first page was better, a little more clean-cut I think. Sorry, but it doesn't really matter. I know why I have this journal, and that's all that matters.

I'm just going to get to the point.

I saw Danielle two weeks ago. Or maybe, more accurately, I should say she saw _me_. Invisible and intangible and completely untraceable. From what I can gather, she followed me for at least two hours that morning before I caught her, and she could have lasted a heck of a lot longer like that if she didn't give herself away. I was mid-way through Lancer's final when she gave herself up, and for the stupidest reason possible. She whispered an answer in my ear—scared the crap out of me actually—just as I was finishing up the multiple choice. I don't think Lancer's ever given me a nastier look. To his credit, the stress of finals was getting to all of us. I sure as hell wasn't in the right state of mind.

I don't remember the conversation exactly, but I'm going to try my best here.

"Psst, it's D. 'Like a bird' is a simile, not a metaphor."

"Holyf—" I hit my right knee on the desk then. Danielle laughed, quietly at least, and Lancer glared daggers at me. I tried to respond without looking up from the paper, but I didn't pull it off as smoothly as I'd hoped. "Danielle? Is that—"

Her voice was back immediately, on the other side now. "Yeah. Geez I've been here all morning you know…" Just saying, when you're not the ghost pulling these stunts, that switiching sides thing gets pretty damn creepy. "So this is what high school is like? Long classes."

"It's the final. Go away." I looked up at Lancer, who was kinda sorta still watching me. "You'll get me in trouble." I talked into my desk the whole time, so it at least didn't look like I was cheating. I probably just looked crazy, come to think.

"Can I watch?"

"No, you—Why?"

"It's…kind of interesting. I promise I won't talk anymore. Pinky-promise!"

"Fine, just…don't talk, okay? Lancer'll hear you, and I need to think." I glanced around, but I still couldn't see her. Still, I knew she was right next to me. "And don't hover over me like that."

"I'm a ghost. I can't help hovering."

Mr. Lancer finally spoke up. Guess he'd been watching the freak show long enough. "Mr. Fenton, is there a problem?"

"Wha—no. No I'm just trying to uh…to think this problem through."

"Thinking does not require talking. Please don't disturb your other classmates," he answered.

"Sorry," Danielle and I both answered at the same time.

I might have gotten some parts of that wrong. Maybe the order's messed up, and the dialogue isn't verbatim. But more or less that's what happened.

But that's not important part of the story. It's a necessary part, but the important part followed.

I handed in my test when the bell rang. I would have left the building with Sam and Tucker if I could, but they both had 2nd timeslot finals. I was actually the lucky one, since my second period class happens to be a study hall. It was the one day I got to leave early, and I didn't waste any time. I found the two of them, wished them luck, and got the hell out of there. I never mentioned Danielle had followed me.

I got a good 200 feet out onto the sidewalk before I talked to her again. The school was far enough behind us, hidden around the bend, and since the school is on the very edge of town, most people head home the other way.

"Danielle?" I called. No response. "Danielle? Are you…are you still here?" Again, nothing. "Guess she left…" I muttered to myself, and set off down the sidewalk. The area was getting pretty wooded, and soon enough I'd have been covered enough to transform and take the fast route home. My mind wandered back to finals, and I mentally marked the spot ahead of me where it'd be safe to take off.

"So how'd you do?"

I practically fell into the street.

"Jesu—Can't you at least turn visible before you…Why didn't you answer when I called you?"

"Sorry, it's just way too much fun." This time she appeared next to me, transforming in the bushes to my left. There wasn't anything remarkable about her appearance. I mean she looked the same as I'd remembered: pony tail, black hair, same little hat. But something seemed different. I'm still trying to figure out what.

"Yeah, careful who you're messing with. You know I could get you back in a second."

"Like you could ever surprise me." She laughed pretty hard at that. It was quite clearly a challenge—you know, if you ask me.

So I responded with the only logical thing I could think of. I stole her hat.

"Hey! Give it back!" She jumped up and down for it, kind of swatting at the air. I was way too tall for her.

"Not a chance. This is payback." I held her hat a little lower, just within her reach, and pulled it back with every jump. I know. I'm an ass.

"Really Danny! I just…" She jumped some more, but finally slouched over and gave up. "Not funny anymore."

"It totally is."

Danielle sat down on the sidewalk, chin in her hands.

"Alright alright," I said, and I bent over to give her back the hat. She wouldn't look at me though, let alone take it. "You followed me to see what high school's like." I plopped the hat on her head. She at least seemed to brighten up a bit at that. "And there are bullies in high school. Bullies who will steal your hats. I'm just trying to help with your experience."

She fixed her hat.

"Do you forgive me?"

"Do bullies really steal your hats?"

"Well not _my _hats, because I honestly can't remember ever wearing one to school, but they'll steal everything else. Shirts, shoes, backpacks, Fenton Thermoses, lunch money."

"They've stolen Fenton Thermoses?"

"Yeah, probably thought it was part of my lunch. Dash nearly wet his pants when he loosened the lid and the Box Ghost popped out." I did a quick double take around the place, but I don't think anyone saw us. I took a seat next to her on the curb. "He thought I'd booby trapped it for him, so he steers clear of anything lunch-related I bring to school. Sometimes I wish the box ghost would haunt more than boxes. He'd be a useful weapon."

She tried to hide it, but I could see her smile.

"So you do forgive me now?" I asked again.

"Maybe." Her smile gave it away.

"Good then," and I patted her on the back. She at least didn't shy away. "You know, for a girl with superpowers, you're not very resourceful."

She put a hand on her hat and kept it there. "What does that mean?" I guess she still didn't trust me.

"I mean, what kind of ghost-girl obeys the rules of gravity when there's something _just _out of reach? I seriously thought you'd float up there and nab it back in a second."

Danielle snorted. "Yeah," She put both her arms in the air, like she was showcasing something. "'Local girl spotted flying in plain daylight, brought back to deranged father for scientific testing.'"

I laughed with her, but it was rather dark humor. "Eh, don't be like that. No one can see us here." I was at least pretty of certain of that. There was only one house in direct view, and its windows ere tightly shut. I'd wager it was abandoned.

"Coming from the boy who spilled his secret to his sister and arch enemy in the most OBVIOUS way possible." She let go of her hat. "Seriously, I'm trying to NOT do what you've done, no offense."

I punched her in the shoulder, but not all that hard. "Hey, if it weren't for my recklessness YOU wouldn't exist. Vlad would just be another half-ghost, cheese-headed, deranged evil billionaire WITHOUT a genetically engineered daughter."

I got another laugh out of her.

"So again, why'd you follow me?" I asked. "I'm not sure we went over this."

She stopped laughing, looked down at the road again, and shrugged her shoulders. I couldn't get her to answer right away. "I don't know…I've been wandering around for a while, never really settled down, and today I kind of—kind of came by Amity Park by accident. I guess I never really went far, and—and anyway, I thought I'd visit you this morning." She kicked at a tiny mound of dust in the road. "You didn't see me when you left. You were in a hurry, literally flew out the door!" She laughed at the pun, and I did too, a little. "So I followed you there. Invisibly. I would have stayed quiet until your class was over, but man that was a terribly easy question to get wrong!"

"Yeah but…why?"

She gave me kind of a funny look. "As in, why was the question easy or—"

"No no, _why _would you want to come to school? It's torture."

She shifted her feet again. They were getting pretty dusty at this point. "Just…you know. I wanted to see school I guess. I wanted to know what school was like."

I laughed, and pretty damn hard at that. It seemed to piss her off.

"Yeah yeah laugh all you like," she answered. "I've just never had the chance to find out!"

I took a second to calm down. "Fine then, I'll show you." I stood up. "Face me."

She did.

"Now, what's 12 times 6?" I asked her.

She hesitated, staring down at her hands. "Uhh…"

"Wrong! F!"

"You didn't give me time to think!"

"And _that _is what school is like."

"…It's 72."

"What?"

"The answer is 72," she said again "To your question."

"It is?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." I sat back down. "What was the question again?"

"You're not a very good teacher, Danny."

I smiled at her. "Most aren't. Now imagine that for 40 minutes apiece, class after class every day. Scared yet?"

"Not really," she answered.

I crossed my arms. "Well then I didn't do a good enough job."

She chuckled a little bit, but kept her eyes to the ground. I can't really say why, but it was an upsetting sight.

I rested my hand on her head. "So you're _really _interested in class?"

Her hands snaked up, swatting my hand from her head and grasping firmly at her hat. "Yeah…I guess. I've never been in school."

I looked around. Still no one here.

"Well then come on," I told her.

"What?"

"I said _come on."_

I transformed right there, and Danielle reeled back a little bit.

"Geez Danny, someone'll se—" she started to say, but I cut her off. My hand wrapped around her wrist, and she phased invisible right alongside me. It wasn't her choice; I did it.

She tried to protest a bit, but I lifted her up and took off into the sky. By flight, the school was only a few seconds away, and I probably covered the distance in half that. The harder part was finding a proper classroom. I was hoping to phase through just a couple of rooms and stumble upon either Sam or Tucker, but I didn't have the first clue where to start. Instead, I settled for the joint final going on in the Lecture Hall. The Lecture Hall is _big. _

"Stay invisible, okay?" I told her once we landed in the back of the room. I think she nodded, because I was met with a split second of silence before I heard her say, "Oh—oh right. Yeah."

I tugged her along with me to the front of the classroom, and briefly let go of her hand as I snagged a Scantron sheet and test from the front of the hall. I threw a quick glance at the rows of students behind us as the the pencil and paper I lifted disappeared right along with my hand. Hopefully no one saw them go.

"Just stick with me. Back row and to the right," I whispered to her.

"Okay," was her response.

"No talking!" I whipped around. The voice didn't belong to either of us.

I looked quickly up and down the rows, turning back up front when my eyes settled on the slightly-graying teacher in the very front of the room. Sweat dripped down her face and her eyes surveyed the room like daggers.

I laughed a bit, even answered with a rather loud "Sorry!" The teacher looked straight through me, at the desk of lonely test packets. The look on her face was priceless.

"Come on."

My hand fumbled in the air a bit, looking for Danielle's. I grasped on to her leg, and she grabbed my hand from there. She let me lead her to the back of the room, to the very back row, all the way to the right. I slipped the papers onto the floor, hidden beneath the table top and chair. After a quick look around, I tossed a pencil under too, and they all reappeared.

"Seriously, Danny. What are you doing?" she asked.

"Welcome to your first and last day of class." I pulled her underneath with me and shoved the pencil in her hand. "Work fast, because you lost about 15 minutes already."

She was silent for a while. I can guess she was looking over the test. "How can I take a final? I don't know any of this."

"Neither do I," I told her. "That didn't stop me from taking any of my finals."

She laughed again. "Fine," she said. "I'll try then."

The pencil flickered through the air, and I saw it scratch her name at the top of the page. First name only, I guess I understand that.

And for an hour and 45 minutes, I sat, and I watched her disembodied little pencil fill in bubble after bubble under the cover of the chair. Once or twice I thought about my finals the next day, and mostly about how I should be studying for them, but each time I let the thought go. It was mesmerizing, that little pencil…

…

When the bell rang, I snagged the paper from beneath her, despite her little squeak of protest. The line of students was filing out at the other end, so I followed them, hovering just above as each of them handed in their papers. A little gap opened up between two students. The first handed in his papers, and the second had turned to ask her friend for a ride home. I took the chance and dropped everything where it belonged. I saw them reappear, both the test packet and the Scantron slightly askew. I didn't risk fixing them though, as the girl behind me came up, dropped her papers on top, and walked on. I'm certain even now that no one saw me.

…

"You didn't have to hand the paper in, you know."

"Hmm?" I looked down at Danielle, her little head bowed as we walked along the sidewalk outside the school.

"It was pretty damn stupid of you." She straightened her hat as it started to fall. "What if someone saw you drop the papers?"

"Ghosts attack this school all the time, you know. You need to think of it on the big scale. Whatever terror a 'paper ghost' would bring, I doubt anyone would even bat an eye at this point.

"It was still stupid."

"I've done a lot of stupid things. Plenty worse than that."

She shuffled on a few more feet in silence. I walked with her. Honestly, I wasn't too sure where we were headed.

"What'll they do with it?" she asked, breaking the silence.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Beats me. Hopefully they'll grade it." She seemed to stiffen at that. "I'll even let you know how you did!"

"Oh god no…" She shook her head, but this time with a little smile on her face. "I guessed on at least ¾ of them."

"For someone who's never taken the class, that's pretty damn good."

We walked for a few moments in silence. The school fell farther and farther away.

"Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"For sneaking me in there. It…it was fun."

I laughed at her, but she didn't seem offended this time. "Seriously? I was trying to prove my point about how horrible school is. I really am a terrible teacher." I stopped dead and turned to face her. "Don't _ever _set foot in that building again. It is significantly more evil than you seem to realize, and I wouldn't want you falling under its spell."

I really did stop this time, because I finally noticed the tears in her eyes.

"Oh, Danielle no—No I didn't really mean you couldn't go back. I-it's a joke—"

She held up a hand, cutting me off, and wiped her eyes with the other. "Danny, I know. I'm not…I'm not really crying. I'm just happy." She dropped her hands and smiled. "I'm happy because I feel like a normal teenager for once." Her eyes trailed to the sky and she laughed one final time. "I didn't just go to school today. I completed the class. I took the _final." _She looked back at me, a few more tears welling in her eyes. "Does that mean I graduate?"

"I, uh…well it depends on what class that was. Not to mention how many credits you actually need, plus fine arts and…" I stopped there, because I didn't feel like being honest to someone so happy. "Yes, Danielle. By decree of…me, I officially say you graduate. Happy?"

"Yes," she wiped at her eyes, "very."

"Geez, you even graduated before me then." She smiled wider, so I kept at it. "But at the rate I'm going I'll probably never graduate you k—"

I didn't finish. Danielle wrapped me in a hug before I could. So I let the subject go, and I hugged her back. "Nice reunion, huh?" I asked. "Might be the first time I saw you without that fruit loop lurking in the shadows."

"Yeah, it's been nice," I heard her say. My eyes were shut, but I opened them when my hands fell through the air. The weight around my neck was gone; I was grasping at nothing.

Danielle was gone.

I wrote about this on one of my earlier pages. It was much shorter, a much more abridged version, but I can't risk letting any details slip this time. I'm still hoping, buried in these pages, I'll remember something to prove I'm wrong. It was a happy memory back then, even if I bombed the English final, I was happy. Maybe it's clear what happened from reading this, maybe it's not, but I really think I've figured it out. The guilt is slowly eating me alive, because I know I think I've killed my cousin. No, no it's probably not obvious yet.

I thought she'd run off, disappeared like she always does, but I have a different theory now. I'm scared—scared and angry and guilty—because I think I get it.

But I've been writing for too long. My hand hurts, and the sun's setting. I should have been sleeping, but I just couldn't get my brain to quiet down. I feel better now—like this is a good stopping point. I'm glad I got this all down on paper. It makes a lot more sense looking at it this way.

I'll just finish later. I'll explain everything a little better

Really, I just hope I'm wrong.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: So this is a oneshot-turned-twoshot. It started getting way too long as one chunk, and there's a significant style change in part two, so it seemed appropriate to split them up. Part two will be up pretty soon, and it'll make this chunk make a lot more sense. It's an idea I've been contemplating for a while, so I'm pretty glad to get it down in writing.<em>

_Reviewers are forever loved, and I appreciate whatever feedback I get. _


	6. Snowstorm

Vlad Masters opened the door to an empty abyss beyond. Howling wind stung his face, freezing flecks of rain assaulting his eyes. He squinted, scanned his porch, and found nothing except the quiet hum of his porch lamp and the bumbling, wet, confused moths that assaulted the light. He looked past his porch, but the rest of the world had been swallowed in black. Cold, consuming darkness met his vision, and only the harsh grind of sleet betrayed the existence of anything beyond his mansion.

"Hello?"

Thunder. Rain. Nothing.

Vlad sighed and reached to close the door to the coldness. It had only taken a few seconds for the biting cold to sweep through his house. It swirled into the entryway, chilling the exposed skin of Vlad Master's legs. He pulled the robes tighter to his body, a different, supernatural chill passing through him just before he shut the door.

"Wait! Wait please, I'm here."

The sonorous voice seemed to pass straight through Vlad. _Yeah, that chill. _The door slid from his grip, swinging back open, this time revealing a pale, quivering ghost. Two green pupils stared back, the boy's hair iced over by the half-frozen sleet.

"Daniel?" Vlad glanced behind the boy, scanning the distance to be safe. "What are you doing here?"

The boy passed his hand through his hair. Well, almost, as his fingers snagged on the frozen tips. He seemed to startle at the fact, tugging once or twice more before giving up and lowering his hand.

"I…Could I maybe stay here? For just a little bit."

Suspicion sparked bright in the older man's eyes, and he debated for a moment whether or not to shut the door in the boy's face. "Why?"

Danny's eyes darted around, his hand reaching for his hair again. "Something happened. I can't go back. Please—I just—just need to sort a few things out."

His voice sounded so much colder than Vlad had ever heard it. Not by his tone, but by the ghostly echo in it. The boy's composure seemed to slowly crumble, insanity building in his eyes, the quiver in his body shaking him like a leaf. Icy sleet dripped down his face, and he blinked away a few drops that slid into his eyes.

_Pathetic. _The word fit the boy so well right now. Vlad had seen his fair share of pathetic people. He once had to chase away a lost 'orphan' boy who'd showed up at his door. The boy was ragged and weary, toting a sob-story about dead parents and abusive relatives. It was an easy ruse to see through, and it took nothing more than releasing the guard dogs to flush out the conman father who'd been watching from the bushes. Vlad had been inwardly disgusted with the whole set up, all for a few pennies out of his wallet, but he sent them away with no involvement from the authorities.

In fact, Vlad prided himself on his ability to distrust people. He learned it early on, and only cultivated it more after his rise to billionaire status. He greeted every client, every up-and-coming businessman, and every party guest with the assumption that they wanted to cheat him out of his money. Lies, ruses, fake names, fake causes, he'd seen it all. But never in his forty years had he seen anything quite like the wretch in front of him, and he knew, with every fiber of his being, that Danny wasn't faking it.

"Just get out of the rain…" the man finally muttered, freeing himself from his thoughts, and stepped away from the doorway.

Danny didn't respond right away. His eyes simply widened, and he glanced up at the sky. "It's raining?"

"Yes."

The boy raised a gloveless hand to the clouds, and stood, silent. "So it is…"

Vlad briefly wondered where the glove had gone, but the icy chill that flushed through his house changed his mind. "It is absolutely freezing. Inside, now."

Cautiously, Danny followed the order, leaving Vlad free to finally shut the door.

"There's a guest bed down that hall. If you need somewhere to lie I would prefer you keep your muddy self away from my couches." Vlad pointed to the right, but Danny wandered slowly toward the living room, stopping just a few feet in front of Vlad. "And if I catch you so much as _thinking _about going in my lab, I'll throw you back out in the rain." Slush dripped from the boy's hair, and Vlad added as an irritated afterthought. "The ghost portal especially. You'd short circuit it."

Danny didn't move, but his head turned to face Vlad, a distant kind of interest sparked in his eyes. "Ghost?" he muttered.

"Yes. Ghost portal. That's what I said."

"Is there a ghost here?"

"Excluding the two of us, no."

"Oh," the interest faded from his face. Instead a distant look, verging on haunting, overtook his eyes. He stood, dripping, unmoving.

"Daniel," the boy's head bobbed up at the sound of his name, "why are you here?" The exasperation stuck out firmly in Vlad's voice. He'd been comfortably wrapped under two layers of blankets with a newly-bathed Maddie at his side, watching some old, forgotten movie from the 60's. Now his entryway was spattered with slush and mud, his arch nemesis frozen by the living room.

"Something happened. I can't go home." Danny refocused on the living room, suddenly interested in the paused movie on Vlad's theater-sized screen.

"So I've heard. _What _happened?"

Danny's eyes swung around to face Vlad, confused and unfocused. "I can't go home," he repeated, like Vlad hadn't heard the first time.

"I understand that! _Why _can't you go home?"

Nothing but a blank stare in response.

"Daniel, I'm a busy man with better things to do than house runaways. I have every intention of kicking you out unless you give me a reason not to!"

"…They'd never let me back in." Danny muttered quietly. "I'm a ghost. They hate ghosts."

Snide comments failed him. The bitter dislike that had been in his throat dissipated with the ripples of shock that coursed through his body. He didn't care much for sympathizing with most people, but he couldn't deny how quickly his thoughts had put him in Daniel's position. It could have been him just as easily, exposed for a ghost by the woman he loved. Maybe Maddie didn't reciprocate his affection; maybe she only tolerated his existence, but the day she came to _hate _him, Vlad was sure he'd never quite recover.

Standing on the carpet, glowing and cold and despondent, the boy could easily be swapped for him. His eyes even seemed to take on a redder twinge in the dim lamplight, the hair darker and the glow brighter, like Vlad's more powerful aura. It was hard not to see the similarity.

Vlad shook the thought out of his head, working desperately to recall every childish prank he'd suffered under the boy. No, he couldn't go feeling sorry for him, not with the danger he presented. Vlad almost changed his mind, sent the boy right back out into the rain, but the look in Danny's eyes had changed so drastically, he almost couldn't connect his hatred of the Fenton boy with the dripping wretch before him. Vlad swallowed his pride and grabbed Danny by the arm.

"Follow me. I won't have you making any more of a mess out here. Count yourself lucky I don't have anyone important coming until nex—"

"Where are we going?" the boy interrupted.

Vlad stopped, perplexed, and looked back at his charge. "The guest room. If you must stay, you're sleeping in th—"

But the boy cut him off once again, yanking his arm from the man's grasp. He shook his head, letting the melted slush fall in puddles on the floor. "No."

"Why?" Vlad asked through gritted teeth.

"…I don't want to sleep."

"Then _wait_ in the room. What do you want me to tell you?" His patience had worn thin.

The boy backpedaled slightly, tripping clumsily on his feet. Somehow he stayed standing, but his eyes wandered over the extravagant hall, seemingly lost.

"Where's the ghost?" he asked.

Vlad clamped his hand down on Danny's arm. "What. Ghost?"

"You said…ghost."

"Ghost _portal_, Danny."

"Yeah…that."

"I'm not telling you," the older man seethed, resuming his march to the guest room. Danny limply followed.

The boy's wayward steps led him to the room, decked in gold and green that stretched to the high-set ceiling. In the dark, it only showed as dark glimmers of two brown shades. Danny wandered through the room, free of the older man's grasp, and settled down on the bed before him. His hand trailed over the silky bedcover, testing its cushion. He stayed in his ghost form.

"Will you stay in here?" Vlad asked.

"…Yes," Danny responded. His distant gaze trailed over the dark walls too, two glowing lights in the cavernous room. His faint glow threw shadows on the wall, the bedposts crawling up the ceiling, the furniture flickering back and forth in a solemn, rhythmic dance. Vlad's hand trailed to the light switch beside him.

"Should I turn the lights on?" he asked, suddenly unsettled by the creeping shadows.

"No. I'm fine like this." And his eyes lost their little spark of interest. They seemed well-acclimated to the dark, darting from corner to corner as if inspecting the walls. Vlad offered a weak sigh and shut the door behind him as he left the room.

Vlad traced his steps back to the living room, consciously ignoring the wet boot stains that ran the length of his carpet. The hallway stretched away, periodic lights in the ceiling throwing shadows over his face. Paintings, vases, and occasional doors watched him from either side as he stalked back to his couch. The ceiling itself wasn't particularly high, and its curved shape robbed it of space at the corners, but it felt especially oppressive with the dark thoughts looming in Vlad's mind. He felt cheated out of a relaxing night and more than a little bothered with the weird glaze in Danny's eyes. He saw them every time he blinked, and it sent chills down his spine.

He paused just shy of the living room. Two, still-frame people stared at him from the giant television set, and he kept careful eye contact with them as he collapsed onto the couch, reclaiming the remote in his hand. Their eyes—their eyes looked fine, and Vlad hit play as his free hand patted wantonly at his cat. Maddie bristled under his touch, her eyes narrowed into disapproving slits, clearly agitated at having been brushed aside for someone else.

Vlad ran a hand over her silken fur. "Maddie…" he whispered. He reached behind her ear, scratching gently at her favorite spot, until the pudgy cat lapsed into contented purrs. The comforting noise didn't help, and Vlad's mind strayed back to the dark room just down the hall. The movie went on without him.

He passed a few minutes watching and rewatching parts of the movie, since he never seemed to catch them the first time. Maddie settled herself in Vlad's lap, not caring one way or the other what he did with the movie, and dozed as Vlad watched the same scene for the 4th time. His focus was shot, and half-way through the 4th rendition, Vlad pushed himself to his feet again. Maddie hissed in annoyance as the cushy lap was ripped away beneath her, but Vlad paid her little mind as he raced back to the kitchen. He grabbed the smooth plastic phone from its stand, lifted it to his ear, and dialed a number he knew just by the position of the buttons. A five second pause met him, drowned in the dull assault of sleet on the high-arching windows.

"H-hello?" a voice on the other side answered. As a quick afterthought, Vlad checked his wristwatch. 12:56. He winced a bit, suddenly realizing how much the time had escaped him.

He cleared his throat. "Y-yes. This is Vlad—Vlad Masters. I apologize for the late hour, but is Maddie home?"

The groggy voice was about to answer when a sharp click sounded through the phone. A third party had joined the conversation.

"This is she," came the curt reply. "Do you need something?"

"Yes, I…again, I _apologize, _but I was wondering if Danny was home?"

He braced himself, partially expecting the connection to be severed right then. They surely didn't want to discuss what happened, not if Danny had wandered through the icy storm just to find Vlad.

Somehow though, the voice that replied was, simply put, perplexed. "Our son Danny?"

"Y-yes," Vlad replied rather meekly.

"It's well past midnight. He's in bed."

"Oh…" Vlad deadpanned. "Well I'm sorry for the intrusion."

"It's no real problem," her bitter voice answered. "I just got in myself, so I'm awake as it is. However I _am _soaking wet and I wouldn't mind a few minutes to myself to warm up, if you can make this short."

"Oh, o-of course. It's just I—"

"What's so urgent, _Vlad?_"

Vlad stuttered momentarily, but he faintly heard Maddie's voice whisper away from the phone.

"_Jack, check on Danny, would you?"_ Pounding footsteps met her request, and Vlad waited out the silence.

Quietly, so quietly he couldn't make out the words, Vlad heard Jack's voice through the other end of the phone. Maddie answered him.

_ "What do you—he's not?"_

Light footsteps raced away from the phone, and Vlad was met with another empty silence. He counted the seconds until the pounding returned and the phone was quickly gathered up.

"Vlad, do you know where Danny is?" The annoyance had been wiped clean from her voice, panic settling nicely in its spot.

"I…I had thought you two…" _They don't know. They have no idea who he is. _"I'm sorry. I don't."

_They don't know his secret._

"Jazz…Jazz!" More footsteps. "W-where's your brother?"

_ "What…?"_

"Where's Danny?

_ "Oh…" _Jazz's tired voice settled into pensive understanding. "_Oh he told me…He actually left to go to Sam's house, left his…his history book there and he needs it to finish a project."_

Vlad hadn't bothered to listen. He slammed the phone down on its base, humility burning in his cheeks. He had wanted to know how bad they took it, how reasonable they'd be about knowing the truth. For once he wanted to be the good guy, act like a medium between Danny and his parents, sort this mess out. The boy had lied to him. His secret wasn't out; his sister was spouting excuses left and right.

His feet pounded down the hall, his slippers soaking up the wet frost that had melted on the floor.

"Daniel!" The door slammed open under his push. Two glowing eyes glanced up at him, dimly interested in his intrusion. The boy hadn't moved an inch.

"Yes?"

The words died in Vlad's throat. The ghostly child looked near-translucent in the pale moonlight. Only the dim glow of his eyes, fixed on Vlad like two caged fireflies, fully gave away the boy's presence. The boy's form became more visceral as Vlad caught his attention, but the whitish glow around his suit burned with flickering intensity, waxing and waning as rhythmically as the his breathing. Actually, from where he stood, Vlad couldn't even be sure the boy was breathing. He was so still, so silent.

"Is there…something?" Danny's echoing voice whispered. Whatever had forced the boy into his state of shock hadn't yet worn off.

"I think you should go home," Vlad answered more quietly than he intended.

"Do I…" Danny blinked quickly, a wisp of chilled air riding his words. His final words trailed off, spoken as a half-hearted 'have to?' while his eyes darted back and forth, eating up the room.

"Ghost," he muttered, pushing himself off the soaked comforter like a child inching his way down the slide. "It's…" He stumbled in a clumsy pirouette, scanning the complete room. "Where?"

Vlad clenched his teeth, covering the distance between him and the wet child. "Stop it." He put a hand on Danny's shoulder, forcibly stopping the turning. "It's me, Danny. _I'm_ the ghost."

The two flickering little lights lit up with joy, and the boy's mouth stretched into a smile. "Ghost? Y-you're…" The one ungloved hand wound its way around Vlad's arm, squeezing down on the satin sleeve. "But you don't…"

"I'm _half-_ghost. Like you Danny."

The little smile flickered and failed; Danny's hand went limp, barely maintaining its grip. "Oh yeah. Yeah, I knew that…"

"Daniel…" the older man started tentatively, keeping his eyes trained on his sleeve. Danny only squeezed it tighter. "Why can't you go home?"

Danny's head shook back and forth. "I can't." He dropped his hand from Vlad, leaving behind a wet stain. "My parents hate ghosts."

"True, and that doesn't _apply_ to you. Your parents know…_nothing _about what happened tonight." Vlad tunneled his annoyance into the emphasis in his voice. "Whatever's happened tonight—they know nothing about it yet," Vlad answered cautiously.

"They will." Danny flopped back onto the bed, his eyes trailing to the ceiling. Their glow dimmed, like he'd phased out of consciousness, like they were soaking in the silence.

"Fine then…" Vlad breathed, backing up to the door. "Just…stay here."

"I will."

And Vlad closed the door.

…

The sound of the doorbell brought Vlad to his senses. He opened his eyes to the assault of sunlight and fumbled briefly with the remote that hung limply in his hands. His thumb found the power button with a little effort, and he shut off the television, which broadcast a poorly-produced, early morning infomercial. His mouth tasted dry and sour, his eyes felt crusty, and he could feel that his ponytail had slipped down to the left side of his neck.

"Dammit," Vlad cursed as he pushed himself to his unsteady feet. He had meant to keep watch all night (the Lifetime marathon would have kept him occupied anyway) so the mentally unstable minor in his guest room couldn't run away, but he realized with a touch of disappointment that he'd dozed off on the couch.

The bell rang again, and Vlad brushed over the folds in his robe, flushing slightly with embracement as he glanced down at the coral-pink satin.

"Coming! Coming…" he called, tucking a cowlick of hair behind his ear. Strands of silver hair riddled his forehead, but he didn't have the time to brush them neatly back into place. A quick glance to his grandfather clock confirmed the early hour, only 10 past 6, with the warm red glow of the sunrise breaking through the foyer windows.

He toyed with the locks on the door, unlatching them one by one, until he was able to wrest the giant door open. He found his guest with her finger poised over the doorbell, ready to ring it again.

"Vlad!" she squeaked, almost surprised. Two violet eyes looked up at him in surprise, ringed with dark splotches below her lids. Her hair was pressed flat to her head, and her rumpled blue hazmat mask hung loosely around her neck. Her whole suit was stained with dark green splotches.

"Maddie, how…how wonderful to see you," he answered, consciously brushing his hair back again. He gave up immediately, knowing that however bad he looked, she looked a hundred times worse. A few loose hairs were nothing to the straggly mess on her head, short chestnut hair frizzed by the humidity, locks plastered together by rusted ectoplasm

"I'm so…" she glanced around, "_so _sorry to bother you this early, but uh…h-have you seen Danny? Since last night? We—we can't find him, and…" Her panicked eyes roved over the entryway, like she might find him standing in the doorway.

Vlad set a steadying hand on her shoulder. "I think you should sit down," he answered, more horrified by her appearance with each passing moment. "Come inside, the couch is—I-I'll make tea."

Maddie only shook her head, continuing her hastily prepared monologue. "He was supposed to be at Sam's, but I called them and they didn't…I think something happened to him, and you…last night." She ran a worried hand through her hair. It snagged on the dried ectoplasm. "We thought you might know."

"_Don't do it."_

Vlad jumped, startled at the sudden response in his ear. He twisted his head slightly, but empty air met him. Vlad knew well enough it wasn't actually empty.

"_Don't tell them. Please." _The hushed voice came again, so close to his ear it sent shivers down his spine.

"Well…Do you know?" Maddie asked again, breaking the silence.

"I…" Vlad ducked behind the door. "No, I don't. I haven't seen him." He rested both hands on the door's edge, ready to shut it.

"Oh, I…" Maddie's face fell, and Vlad caught the sparkle of tears in her eyes. "W-why'd you call?"

"I was up late, trying to revise a new curfew law, I needed a teenager's input. It's just…coincidence."

Maddie waited several seconds to respond, turning Vlad's words over in her mind, until her face fell in tired misery. "I-if you see him then…please, let us know."

Vlad felt his heart leap into his throat, clogging his airway. The two red-rimmed violet eyes stared back at him, with all the desperation in the world, and he didn't know what to tell them. He wanted to hold her, pull her into his arms, tell her everything he knew. He would have, but the ghost boy's chilled breath still fanned his ear. The uneasiness that twisted in his stomach put him off.

"I will. I promise," he told her, unable to look at her anymore. "I'll do whatever I can."

"Thank you. I—"

And he shut the door.

Vlad drilled his eyes into the green carpet at his feet. He clenched his fists, almost giving into the disgust he felt for himself. He could have ripped the door open, brought her back, called Danny out on his act. The boy had hardly been two feet from her, and yet…and yet…

The ethereal ghost at his side shifted back into existence. He floated just at Vlad's shoulder, watching the door with mild interest. Danny was about to speak when Vlad rounded on him.

"Are you happy with yourself?" he nearly seethed. The ghost boy flinched. "Making me lie to her? Go home. Change back and go home."

The spark of interest melted under Vlad's assault. His reaction was delayed, but understanding finally flickered in Danny's eyes. The understanding turned to shock, then misery, as two translucent tears welled in Danny's eyes. He rubbed furiously at them, and managed to spring a leak from each eye. In a matter of seconds, he'd drifted to the floor, walked his ungainly feet to the door, and leaned a glowing hand it. Vlad watched as Danny suppressed the quiet sobs that racked his body.

"I can't," Danny said again.

"Then explain it to me," Vlad snapped back, not letting the boy's state of mind deter him. "I'm tired of you shrugging this _off_. Explain it to me or go home."

"I don't know how to. I don't…My thoughts are all—" Danny put his arms to his head, throwing his hands out into the air. "They're like…gone. I can't."

A sickening feeling churned in Vlad's stomach. "Hey Daniel," he started.

The boy looked up.

"Ghost," Vlad whispered.

Circuits fired through Danny's mind. He rose, floating in the air, his head turning feverously from side to side. "Where?" he asked.

"There isn't one."

Hardened anger burned in Danny's eyes. "Then why'd you say it?"

"Why do you _care _so much if there's a ghost?"

Confusion overtook his anger, and Danny floated back down. "I…I don't know."

"What happened to you last night?"

Confusion morphed to concentration, then to frustration, then to clear uncertainty. "I told you, I don't think I can explain."

"Were you fighting a ghost?"

Danny perked up at the word, and Vlad quickly corrected himself.

"Were you fighting _something_ last night, Daniel?"

"I…" Danny looked side to side. "Yes, yes I was."

"Where?"

"In the forest. Maybe…maybe two miles from here, or three, or four. It was right by the long twisty road we take to get here."

"There are a lot of long twisty roads. Be more specific."

Danny just shook his head. "Can't…"

Vlad paused, fighting down the disappointment. "Well then, we'll have to drive the route back to your house. If you pass it on your way here, we'll pass it on our way back."

"No!" Danny quickly shouted, rising again from the floor. "Not back home."

"I won't _take _you back home. Just on the road." Vlad grabbed the boy's hand. "Get in the car."

Danny didn't offer any protest. He floated just above the floor, stumbling slightly to keep up with the older man's gait.

…

The car started with a quiet growl, revving louder and faster as Vlad twisted the key. Danny sat silently in the passenger's seat, his eyes roving over the dark, snowy outside as he pressed his gloveless hand into the leather seat. His eyes traced over dials and gauges, and his finger fidgeted with the automatic lock on his side of the door. Vlad had been sure to child-proof it, therefore disabling Danny's control of the car door's lock, but he knew it wouldn't matter. Danny could much more easily phase through the window if he pleased.

Danny scraped at the ice that clouded the window, giving up once he realized it was firmly stuck to the outside. The car had been left out in the driveway all night, and its engine groaned from the cold. Vlad drove cautiously, peering through the ice-coated windshield as the tires swerved gently on the road. The rain last night had iced over the powdery snow, leaving behind sheets of frozen sleet. Vlad silently hoped his car was equipped for the conditions.

It was hardly six in the morning, and Vlad drove the back roads alone. These roads were quiet normally, flanked on either side by long stretches forest, since the underdeveloped path led almost exclusively to Vlad's mansion. Now though, they were downright silent. Vlad busied his mind in the hum of the heater, consciously trying to ignore how deathly quiet Danny remained during the trip.

Suddenly, Danny startled, jerking upward and throwing his hand against the glass window. The car veered as Vlad jumped in response.

"What?" he demanded from the agitated boy.

"I know that branch," he whispered with a quivering hand pressed to the glass. His wrist phased through the window, and he pointed the gloveless hand at a snapped, hanging tree branch.

Vlad slowed, and glanced up at the dangling limb. It was least six inches thick, and had been snapped near the trunk, hanging on by a few strained fibers. As Vlad looked ahead, more torn and twisted limbs dotted the right side of the icy road.

"Do you remember anything?" Vlad asked as he pulled the car over on the side of the road. He twisted the key, feeling the car die as its power source was cut off. Without the gentle thrum of the heater, the two half ghosts lapsed into a deathly silence.

"Yeah," Danny whispered finally, rubbing his side. "Ouch."

"I'll take it _you _were the one tumbling through here?" Vlad tried to trace a path through the snapped tree limbs. He could almost imagine someone falling through from the top, knocked left and right by the thicker branches.

"Yeah," Danny nodded his head, his eyes roving with a hint of fear. "I don't like this place."

From the corner of his eye, Vlad watched the boy pat just below his left shoulder. Danny's gloveless hand looked even paler, patting deeper and deeper below his socket. The palm straddled his arm and chest, shifting toward the latter. Just…patting.

"What's wrong?" Vlad asked.

Danny only shook his head, patting, staring. "Yeah, it's here."

Vlad unlatched the doors with a quick flick of his thumb, enjoying the comfortably familiar noise and pushing the door open at his side. Vlad slid out, landing ankle deep in frost, and rounded the front of his car until he came to the icy snow banks that framed the partially-plowed road. The snapped trees stood just beyond it.

Cold breathing on his shoulder announced Danny's silent presence. Vlad hadn't heard the door open, and figured the boy had just phased through his side. Vlad ignored it, and took one teetering step into the snow. A chill crept through his shoes, and he focused on not slipping.

"What am I doing?" he asked rhetorically as an obvious realization slapped him in the face. Danny easily drifted over the wet, slippery, cold snow and ice, and here was has, trudging in the soaked boots he'd hastily slipped on at the door. Two black rings formed around his waist, spreading over the rumpled clothes he'd tossed on right before getting in the car, and left behind a much more practical, much more immaculate ghost form. He rose out of the snow happily.

An ectoblast nearly scorched his left ear, and Vlad leapt aside with a surprised shout. Danny was floating at his height, staring him down, another ectoblast charged in his palm.

"For god sakes Daniel _stop._"

He didn't. A second blast. Vlad quickly reverted to his human form, dropping and landing with his feet in the slush.

Confusion overtook Danny's eyes again, and he lowered himself, until he floated just in front of Vlad. Danny wasn't looking at him though, more like past him. "Where?" he started.

Vlad slapped him firmly across the cheek. Danny's head snapped sideways, but he didn't even flinch. "I'm helping you Daniel, out of the goodness of my heart _I am helping. _Do not make me change my mind."

The ghost boy didn't answer; he merely wandered farther into the forest. On unsteady legs, Vlad followed.

Vlad glanced from side to side, noticing how much worse the destruction got. Tree trunks were scorched; ectoplasmic residue burned in his nostrils; twigs and limbs and entire trees were downed all around him. A few evergreens had most of their pine needles shorn off, the sad, half-scorched foliage scattered around the forest floor. As they progressed, Vlad came across a tree, possibly five feet wide, completely toppled in the snow. Its base had been burned black as night. Charcoal mixed with the white snow around his feet.

Danny stopped suddenly, only a few feet in front of Vlad, and stared into the quiet forest beyond. Vlad could almost make out the end of the destruction, but his focus was torn from the trees when Danny turned in midair. He screwed up his eyes in concentration, and whipped past Vlad with a cold breeze.

"That's enough," Danny said. "I want to go back."

"Go back _where?"_

Danny turned and blinked. "Your house."

"No, you are not."

He blinked again. "I can't?"

"Tell me what's happening, and maybe I'll consider bringing you back." Vlad crossed his arms over his chest. "Otherwise, I'm bringing you back to Maddie."

"Y-you wouldn't do that. What would she say when _Plasmius_ shows up at her door? You think…think she'd be okay with that?" Danny challenged. The anxiety in his voice robbed it of any threat, but even now, the blackmail worked on Vlad.

Instead, Vlad trekked on, tripping and sliding on the icy sheets. His balance faltered, toppling him forward, and he hit the soft ground with a thud. Vlad moaned, pressing his arms into the snow, cracked his blurry eyes open. He caught sight of ectoplasmic blood frozen under the layer of ice. A little tremor of excitement fluttered in his chest, and he shoved his chest out of the snow. Whatever had happened here, he was getting close to it.

"Let's go!" Danny called from behind him. The ghost ricocheted back and forth between the man and the path back to the street, like he was trying to coax a dog to follow him, but Vlad ignored him. He traced the path with his eyes.

Vlad shuffled forward on his hands and knees, the cold a distant concern, and followed the faint residue of green beneath the ice. His hand suddenly sunk into powdery snow. He yanked it out, shaking off the cold, but instead studied to strangely soft spot with curiosity. He lost some of the trail here. The thick tree covering him offered a pretty clear answer; its pine needles were intact, and had protected the soft, snowy area underneath from the on slot of ice last night. Instead, an uneven blanket of snow covered the ground, probably blown under the tree by the wind.

The mound of snow rose high to his left. Chunks of ice protruded from the snow bank; the top of the pile had caved inward. Its uneven appearance made a sharp juxtaposition with the smooth ice and wind-blown snow that surrounded it. Ignoring the whimpering of the ghost behind him, the billionaire got back on his feet to investigate. He didn't even care that the trail of ectoplasm was lost under the pile of snow.

"Vlad!" Danny cried, suddenly appearing at his side. "Come on! Let's go! I don't…" Danny swooped in front of him, his arms wide. "It's cold. Let's go." Shiny tears pricked his eyes.

"Daniel," Vlad started with a lump in his throat. His focus was solely on the strange snow, the horrible destruction. He didn't need Danny interfering now, useless as he was. "There's a ghost."

Danny's eyes glazed. "Where?"

Vlad point back to the car. "Over there."

And the ghost boy was gone in a flash of light.

His suspicion ate through him like acid, and Vlad conjured a ball of heated ectoplasm in his palm. He held it to the mound of snow, watching the delicate crystals melt away. With a slight spark, the radius of the ectoplasmic ball increased, eating into the snow. Vlad pushed his hand in, letting the melted snow seep into his sleeve. It chilled him to the bone, but still he dug deeper, until the mound of snow collapsed in on itself. Something poked through the soggy mess.

Vlad grabbed it.

A thermos, a Fenton Thermos, with one deep crack running along its left side. He ran his hand over the icy exterior, tracing the sleek metal, the jagged teeth of the crack. Vlad held the thermos up to the sky and peered inside as the sunlight shone through the crack. It looked empty, like a normal thermos, the concave inside curved into a perfect cylinder. Vlad unscrewed the cap, opened it, and tested the ghost ray traction. He jammed his thumb on the retractor.

Nothing. The thermos wouldn't start. Vlad shook it, tried again, and was met with the same result. It didn't work.

He brought back the ectoplasmic ball in his hand, enjoying the warmth that spread through his arm after the thermos had sucked so much heat from him. The ectoplasmic sphere warmed the thermos too, and Vlad felt certain he saw the metal expand a bit. He studied the thermos, mindlessly running the warm ectoplasm over his suit, his legs, and finally letting it rest on his head. He felt water run down his face as the bits of snow lodged in his hair dissolved.

A broken thermos. He turned it over in his free hand. A dead, broken thermos. No good in a ghost fight.

"Daniel!" Vlad called, watching the boy circle his car. True, he'd sent the boy away, but a new question burned in his mind.

"What?" the boy called back over, continuing his search.

"This thermos is broken. Is it yours?"

Danny looked over briefly. "Yeah," he answered. He froze, his eyes scouring the thermos, and swooped back to Vlad's side. "That's…it was broken."

"You remember?"

"Yeah." Danny's eyes went wide, they swiveled upward, then back to Vlad. Terror overtook his face.

"It was…it was broken last night? Already?"

"Yeah," he answered with a quiver in his word.

Plop. Vlad felt something drip onto his head. As an afterthought, he dispersed the heat from his raised hand, realizing he'd melted the snow on the tree above. Danny only looked at him in horror.

The drip moved down his face, crossing between his eyes and over his nose. Vlad rubbed it away.

Plop. Vlad wiped quickly at his head, inwardly deciding that a head full of snow may have been better than a head drenched in water.

"Don't look up," Danny whispered with a terrified squeak. "We need to leave."

Yet, in the all too human habit of doing precisely what one is told not to do, Vlad looked up; he looked up at the tangle of tree branches above his head. Cracked tree limbs lay skewed at odd angles, and cradled in them lay the answer Vlad wanted.

A raven-haired teen was slumped in a mess of broken branches. His body buckled inward, his head turned at an odd angle; congealed blood matted his hair, verging on frozen. At the nape of the boy's neck, a drop of liquid red pooled and fell onto Vlad's head. Vlad didn't wipe this drop away; he let it trickle down his forehead, losing itself in his matted silver hair. He only surveyed the scene in quiet horror, noticing how the snow near the boy's neck had melted too, product of his heated palm.

Vlad's neck swiveled around, his wide eyes flickering over the floating ghost boy. "But how are you-?"

The answer rushed through him like ice.

"Can we leave?" the boy whimpered again. "I don't like looking at it."

Vlad raised one trembling hand to the tree above, the tips of his fingers brushing against the boy's frozen skin. It was hard, like stone, littered with black blotches of frostbite. He quickly retracted his arm, nauseated and colder than he ever remembered feeling. Words failed him, and he simply turned to face the quivering ghost-boy.

"She didn't mean to break the thermos," Danny whispered, his head shaking, eyes brimming with tears. "She'd never—it was an accident, Vlad."

"Who?" he asked quietly. His stomach turned, his heart leaping, he knew. He already knew.

"It was the ice really. It was too cold for the thermos. It was the other ghost who…It was…" Wind swept through the trees. Danny's dangling arm rode the breeze, and the ghost flinched away with a quiet whimper. "But she was the one who left me…" he finished, the hollow echo in his voice perfectly tuned to the wind.

Vlad plodded through the sopping mush, finding his footing on the hardened ice. He set both hands on the boy's shoulder, lowering to ghost to his height. "Danny, listen to me: we'll take you back home. We'll explain to he—no, listen! We'll explain to her, and she'll be heartbroken, but at least, _at least, _she'll have you back. That's all she wants."

Danny shook his head, phasing straight out of Vlad's grip. "It won't work." His bleary, green eyes trailed to the crumpled mess in the branches.

"Why not?"

"I'm not me anymore." His eyes quivered, drinking in the dead boy's body. "Whatever I was, whoever I was—i-it's hanging there in that tree. I feel that…so much of me is just gone, and no matter how hard I try to remember, it doesn't come back. I don't think I understand anything…The world is blurry," Tears spilled over his eyes as he looked away. "and all I can think about are ghosts."

"It's your obsession," Vlad answered calmly, struggling to repress the panic that built in his throat. "But that doesn't _define _you," he lied.

Danny's rocking head stared at the ground. "I listen to my parents. I know a lot about ghosts, and I know what I am. I'm just…memories. I'm a shell. I can't learn. I can't adjust." The green eyes lit up with fire as they stared into Vlad. A cold rush swept down Vlad's spine, and he backed away instinctively.

Vlad kept his eyes locked on the ghost boy. "She needs to know you're—"

"She needs to know _Danny Fenton's dead," _Danny's ghost seethed, until his eyes softened, the feral gleam leaving them. "Please," he muttered.

Vlad listened to the quiet howl of the wind.

"Would you please tell her?"

Cold wind brushed against Vlad's legs. He watched the intensity that burned on the ghost's face, outlining bleak, dead eyes. The realization slammed into him just then, and his eyes widened at the gut-wrenching tug of understanding. He saw it—he finally saw it. The deadness in the child's eyes, that unsettling gleam that had swamped the neon irises since last night. He'd seen it plenty of times before in ghosts, so much so that he didn't realize what was amiss when he saw it in Danny's eyes. It had never been there before. That look, that feel—It was death.

"Her son needs to tell her," Vlad tried weakly. He felt his voice weaken, his argument falling apart at the seams, his being eaten up the heavy stench of death. The ghost was right, and Vlad's every human fiber warned him to leave. The potent aura of death was so fresh, so powerful, so absolute.

"Her _son _can't tell her. Her son is dead." Danny's ghost sunk into the snow, his legs folding beneath him, his hair blending into the winter wasteland.

One last gust of wind picked up. It tousled the ghost's hair, blasting it across his face, erasing his face.

"And I…I'm nobody."

...

_(A/N: So I found the first part of this sitting on my hard drive at school. I'd started it an forgot about it, so I decided to pick it up again. I've also got a half-dozen more half-completed one shots in the making, and the makings of another full-length story. I hope to get them all out eventually. :) )_

_Welcome to Phantomrose96's Oneshots. Today's forecast is cloudy with an 80% chance of Danny dying._


	7. A Victim of Time

At 16, Sam Manson wrapped her hands around her boyfriend and laughed because she'd grown taller. Danny pushed her off with a good-natured shrug, and his cheeks grew bright red, flushing with just a hint of green, framing the wry smile on his lips. He rose to his tip-toes, planted one light kiss on her forehead, and muttered, "No fair, you're wearing combat boots."

At 17, Sam insisted on asking her boyfriend to prom. Tucker, with a light coating of stubble and a deep, crackling voice, took utter delight in this.

"She's wearing the pants, Danny, just accept it. No way you'll ever be half the man she is."

And Danny laughed along, but with a thin, trembling chuckle that never touched the rest of his face. His eyes had grown too wide, his breathing too quick, and his nervous gaze darted over his best friend's scratchy chin. Danny rubbed his own smooth jawline.

"Yeah, never."

At 18, Sam Manson brought her boyfriend into her room in the dead of night. He'd phased himself seamlessly through the wall, a light dusting of snowy white camouflaged in his hair, and blushed bright green when he noticed the present waiting for him on the bed. Lace black panties were hiked up high on her hips, and nothing but a thick, velvet ribbon covered her chest.

"Merry Christmas, Danny," she purred, and grabbed hold of his hand. She set his fingers on the end of the bow, daring him to tug it, and smiled when his quick jerk sent it to the floor.

Her boyfriend shook with anxious delight, but her own stomach started to solidify. A deep, pressing anxiety ate through her like acid as she watched Danny transform back, hastily yanking on the neck of his shirt.

Childish eyes glowed with his joy, his cheeks round and (she hated to think it) pinchable. A thin ribcage and scrawny arms appeared in the wake of his shirt, peppered with scars from a million ghost encounters too many. She remembered the guilty pleasure that used to claw at her stomach when she traced those scars with her eyes.

At 18, she only wanted to dab her boyfriend's cuts and scrapes with neosporin, smooth bandaids over his skin, and send him off with a pat on the head. She envisioned herself shooing him off to the playground with the other kids.

He started fumbling with his pants, and the clamor of his belt brought her back to her senses. More importantly, Sam remembered with icy shock, he was 18 too. Hardly two weeks younger than her, in fact.

And he just looked so precious.

In the spring, Danny inched closer to Sam on their checkered blanket. A soggy sandwich, soaked in mayo and sparse on lettuce sagged in his grasp. He stared at it with clouded eyes, and set it down with a sigh.

"Sam?" he asked.

A delicate paused pierced the air. She stopped chewing, succumbing to the stillness, and squirmed under the weight in his voice.

"Yeah, Danny?"

"Did I…do something wrong…last time?" He stared down at his off-white sneakers, wiggling his toes and seeing none of them. "I get you want to take it slow…totally get it—a-and I don't want to force you into anything…but I really have to know. Because we haven't—you know," Danny rocked forward, _"done_ anything since."

Sam smiled through the knot in her stomach and dug her hand into the malleable ground, leaning with her weight, until her eyes locked with Danny.

"No, it's nothing you did," she reassured, and she let her own lunch drop, twisting her wrist to run it through his dark hair. "Trust me, you were…_wonderful. _It's just been a busy few months with colleges."

Danny nodded fervently and jammed the reassurance into his head, forcing himself to believe it.

Sam pushed her face to his, running her tongue over his lips, which parted happily in welcome. Her second hand wrapped itself in his hair, grabbing fistfuls of black and destroying her balance. She fell on top of him, swung her leg over, and straddled him like a horse.

"No one's around," she whispered in his ear, pausing momentarily to bite his ear. "You feel like it?"

His breath was hot and fast on her neck, his gasp sharp when she bit harder.

"Yes," he nearly choked, and he pushed her onto her back, trembling hands taking command. He pressed both his palms into the blanket, one on either side of her face, while he reciprocated with a bite to the collar of her shirt. She gasped at the proximity of his teeth and shivered through the chill of having her shirt phased off her body.

Sam had never been one to wear bras, and her boyfriend never knew the frustrating satisfaction of unhooking one, but he never cared for it. The impact was always better this way. Instantaneous. Euphoric.

After a few thick, palpitating seconds, Danny swung his eyes to look at hers. The fire in his chest died in an instant, solidifying like ice.

"Sam what's…wrong?" he asked as he pushed himself off her.

"What? Oh, nothing's—" She shook her head, reaching out a hand and balling up his shirt in her fist, "Nothing's wrong. Just…don't stop."

He stared at her hand, dejected, and phased his shirt intangible, watching Sam's grip fall away. His rumpled shirt stayed put on his chest.

"No, something's definitely wrong. You look…you look uncomfortable. You don't want to do this." His dim, defeated eyes locked with her. "Why?"

Sam pulled herself into a sitting position and hugged her knees, her gaze falling to the far right. "I might just…not be in the mood right now."

"I don't think you ever are." It sounded like an accusation. Danny took her jaw in his hand, forcing her to look back. "Which is…_totally _okay. But I have to know, Sam." The line of his mouth grew thin. "Do you…still have feelings for me, Sam?"

"Of course!"

"It's been a while since you've acted like it…"

Her mouth was dry, her cheeks warm, her heartbeat deafening, and every sound that bubbled in her throat died, formless, in her mouth. Danny stared down at his hand, removing it from her chin, and watched it, almost fascinated, as he flipped it around.

"I haven't…I keep thinking I will and I don't. I keep hoping if I wait it'll happen—like I'm a late bloomer or something—but I'm starting to think not." He stared up at her with scared desperation on his boyish face. "I'm not getting older, am I?"

Her head shook lightly, her eyes scanning the same sight. The tousled black hair and lanky body. The wide eyes and round face.

"You look exactly the same as when…in the portal." She ran her hand over his cheek. "I guess you've noticed too."

He slapped it away suddenly as quick anger clouded his face. "Of course I've noticed. How could I _not _notice? I can hardly keep my life together anyway and I just have to keep this thought buried in the back of my head and yet you…it's like, every time you _look _at me I can tell."

"Maybe it'll fix itself," she offered weakly.

"And maybe it won't," he countered. Hard eye stared her down. "That's it, isn't it? That's why you've been acting like you don't want to touch me?"

"It's just hard…"

"But why?" Danny threw his arms out, framing his body. "I'm still me! I'm still 18! Why should…why should it be any different?"

"It's just…_hard _Danny. It's hard for me._"_

"Oh, it's hard for _you?"_ Danny laughed. "How do you think I feel?"

She took it like an electric shock to her system. A quick, tense moment passed before she found her voice. "I never said it _wasn't _hard for you, Danny. Just for me—"

"But _why?"_

_"_Why do you think? I'm—I really am trying, Danny. Can't you tell?"

"I don't care if you're trying—I don't want you to try, actually! How's it supposed to make me feel better that you're 'trying'?"

"Well what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to do this for real!"

"Do what for real?"

"Danny threw his hands out, encompassing both of them and the blanket. "This! This relationship. Explain to me why it can't just be normal."

"It's complicated."

"Explain."

"It's just _difficult_," Sam ground out.

"But why?" Danny answered with just as much fire in his voice.

"Because I feel like I'm fucking a child, Danny!" Sam seethed. Her half-crazed eyes roamed over his young face, angry, indignant, accused. "I'm not a pedophile."

The anger on Danny's face melted into icy shock—hurt, even. His eyes flitted back and forth between Sam's, waiting for her to take it back, waiting for an apology he wasn't getting.

"…But I'm not…" his wispy voice pleaded.

"But you _are…_Mentally, physically." She looked back with muted regret on her face. "You see it, don't you?"

His eyes fell into his lap, clouded, hurt.

"You're gonna be 19 soon, Sam. _We're _gonna be 19. What'll you think of me then?"

"How can I—"

"What about when we're 25? Or 30? Would you…would you even be seen in public with me?"

"Danny—"

"College, Sam. We're going to the same college."

"Just let me talk, Da—"

"_Would you be seen with me?_"

Her soft eyes, wet and trapped, met his gaze with cold certainty.

"…No, Danny, I wouldn't."

A cold second passed, silent, his heart stopping with his breath.

"You're joking, Sam…"

She threaded her arms back through the straps of her loose shirt, tugging it over her head. As a second thought, she grabbed her sandwich and dropped it into the sticky Ziploc bag.

"You're joking."

She ran her trembling nails over the plastic seal.

"Sam, you're…joking."

Her eyes swung to meet his.

"I'm not."

He'd seen buildings crumble, cities burn, entire streets leveled to ash, but Danny had never looked so wholly lost as he did when Sam whispered her answer, gathered the blanket up, and disappeared, alone, into the street below.


End file.
